Boosting confidence and empowering toddlers!

[DxbtoLHR]

Hi,

I've got DD (3.5 yrs) and DS (2.5 yrs) and I'm finding it very difficult to manage thir behaviours. Both of them seem to have problems listening to basic instructions or if I ask them not to do something they'll go ahead and do it immediately anway. For example, if they are playing and I say it's lunch time after giving a 5 minute warning they'll make a big fuss and won't come over, saying "No, not yet, not finished" or "not hungry" etc any kind of excuse.

I'm aware that the problem could be the way I ask, or just communication in general. The way I was raised meant that I did exactly as my mum asked me to but to the point that I just wanted to please her and I think it's made me quite a submissive adult, not very confident or creative! I really don't want to do the same to my kids but sometimes I feel as if I am trying to "control" them. So what I'm asking is how do you empower your kids without being a pushover? How to let them feel in control without them taking over!? And is there a particular way you'd speak to them when asking them to do something?

I hope this makes sense and thanks for reading!

I think they need to learn that they are not always in control. You are the parent and know what's good for them so if you say it's time for a meal, or to stand at the side of the road until you says it's safe to cross, or it's bed time, they need to know that you mean it and not doing it will have consequences.
They can be in control of (at this age) whether they play with lego or cars, go on the swing or the slide, or wear the yellow top of the blue.
You need to be assertive with them when it matters, and not let them get away with things or you may find that empowered toddlers start running the house

Agree with Seeline. You need to clarify which areas are yours and theirs to decide. I allow DD to pick her clothes for my sins but she knows when I say to sit at the table she has to stop what she is doing and get on her bottom!

I think it actually helps their confidence to have these boundaries as they learn that there are rules and feel comforted. DD could be pretty bossy if I left her to it, so to save my sanity further down the road I have to be quite firm in certain areas. You do the same for safety when crossing a road, so it can be the same type of thing for rules at home.

I agree with the others. Toddlers need to know an adult is in charge to feel safe. It would be terrifying for them to feel they were in charge, and could cause them to act up and behave badly. I think giving them choice about small things, clothes, sandwich fillings etc is enough at that age.

Thanks for the replies.

I get what you're all saying about rules and boundaries. I think generally I do have these in place, but they are not being taken seriously! Why could that be?
And what kind of consequences, like in the above example for not coming to the table for Lunch?

You need to find something that will work at that moment. If they are involved in making something you could say that you will give them something extra to add to it (loo roll as tunnel for train or whatever) after lunch, but they have to eat it first. Or put them into the seat yourself if that works better. Bribe by icecream for pudding. Get older one to lead by example. Whatever works. DD doesn't work well with 'threats' so if I said I wouldn't give her something afterwards she would simply not do what was asked because she's already associated it with a negative (I think that is why anyway) so I think trick is to keep an excited tone raving loon more like and try to make it an extension of what they are doing. So "Oh look DS1, we have those squiggly pasta shapes you like, and a special surprise for pudding if you eat it all up - do you want to know what it is? Better sit on that bottom and you'll find out" kind of thing rather than "if you don't sit down right now you won't get any yummy ice cream". I don't actually make DD eat her whole meal if she doesn't want, but she does have to say she is finished before she gets down or gets pudding. I'm not really too bothered about most things other than safety, please and thank you, and meal times at the table!

Thanks Lioninthesun. I guess your saying to keep it positive and exciting rather than using threats.

I think it needs to be 90% positive and exciting - let's do this, help Mummy do that, shall we do this together, isn't that great! etc - so that they don't really get that they are being asked to do something. And there is room for them to have some choice. I quite often offer DD(2.4) little things to chose between, such as two pieces of fruit, two tops, things like that, things that actually don't make a difference to our day which one she chooses.

But with our toddler, we definitely still need that 10% 'threats'. There are times when it is non-negotiable and she just has to do what we say. I think limiting that means that your assertiveness is hopefully taken more seriously by them, as it is rarer.

In your example about food, I would just stick to my guns. The warning and countdown is always helpful, but if they won't come when you ask them to, then lunch time is over.

I'm making a conscious effort at the moment to really praise good behaviour, as it seems so easy to slip into only criticising 'bad' behaviour but then never giving the positive reinforcement for good behaviour. This became clear with food recently when DD started mucking around sometimes when eating, and we realised that it was because she has always generally eaten best while being left alone, but that backfired a bit as she worked out she was getting attention when she started playing with her food. So now I make an effort to give her praise when she's had a good meal, eaten plenty and tried a bit of everything. Same thing for when she walks happily holding my hand, I've been thanking her now and telling her how nice it is that she is holding mummy's hand so well.

Yup, that sounds about right to me too. I think picking your battles and limiting stress and threats to times that really matter is the best way.

Yes, praise is easy to loose sight of when the terrible 2's kick in! Always good to remember when they are doing something well and mention it

It does mean you feel like a bit of a tit walking down the street saying "nice DD, good DD, what a clever girl you are holding mummy's hand like she asked you to"

I had the whole weekend alone with DD last weekend (work f/t) and she is slap bang in the middle of starting to push the boundaries and see what she can get away with. My mornings where I am trying to get me and her ready to get out of the house can be really stressful and I know I can snap too much. But I made an effort all weekend to be happy, positive, chirpy voiced, lots of praise and all that, taking a deep breath when she pushed a button, walking away when she was throwing an unnecessary tantrum, and it actually felt like it paid off.

Natural and logical consequences work well in my experience. They e

Won't come to dinner: then they get nothing to eat.

If they won't put their shoes on: they don't go out.

"Won't come to dinner: then they get nothing to eat.

If they won't put their shoes on: they don't go out."

I think that's a little simplistic, although I do agree in principle about consequences.

If you have an older child to get to school for instance and a toddler won't put their shoes on- then what? Keep older child off school? Leave toddler alone?

I agree with the others that employing a positive approach and being creative really work.

I love this article- it's about how to motivate toddlers to walk nicely in the street, but many of the principles and ideas could be used for other situations.

silver-fish.hubpages.com/hub/Preventing-Toddlers-From-Running-Off

The singing bit sounds like me
Do you mean explaining consequences rather than carrying them out altogether? I find explaining sometimes helps as well. DD is inquisitive but logical so if she hasn't got her shoes on she knows we can't leave the house. I think sometimes we skip to the end and they need the explanation bit in the middle. "You need to sit at the table to eat or the cat could eat it/so we can all talk together/so we keep any mess in the kitchen" or whatever.

deepinthewoods I know, I realised that it was a bit problematic as I pressed "post" . It would work better if it was an anticipated activity, such as going to the park etc.

My older two are only 6 and 8, yet I struggle to remember the techniques I used when they were toddlers. I'd better remember soon, as ds3 is almost 2!

I think the fewer words used the better, when reinforcing a command/request; and picking battles is important too: toddlers will look to have control over some part of their lives, so giving them a couple of safe choices of, for example, socks to wear, is preferable to war over sitting in the car seat, or holding hands crossing the road.

I find giving my 2.5yo choices works well.

For example, if he doesn't want to sit at the table for lunch I'll say "you need to sit up nicely to eat your lunch. Would you like to sit in Mummy's chair or Daddy's chair?"

He then makes the decision and sits up nicely because he feels more in control of the situation (I think).

He is only ever given 2 choices, the results of which achieve what I need him to do:

"Do you want to sit on the floor to put your shoes on or on the sofa?"

"Do you want to drink your milk with a straw or without?"

Not sure if this technique will work for long but I'd say it works about 95% of the time at the moment.

Yes, giving them the illusion of control by offering two "safe" choices worked quite well for me too. Actually I probably still do this!

I'm sure this is obvious and everybody does it, but explaining the reasons why we need her to do certain things seems to help with our two year old. Especially when the reasoning involves avoiding someone (her/us/a pet/someone else) being made sad/poorly/hurt. And on some level, everything we ask her to do has one of these aims in mind.
As a child, my parents just expected me to do stuff because they said so (they were nice, this was just the way they approached it). But I'm not comfortable with this for myself and dd, it feels too dictatorial. I would rather she did things because she understood they were the sensible or right thing to do.