2 year old running away

[Whatisgoingoff2024]

Didn't realise how much of an issue this had become until we came on holiday to Greece. My LB will be 2 in 2 weeks and every opportunity on the beach, by the pool he will run for his life giggling his head off. I have tried setting out boundaries/ expectations once we arrive but nothing seems to work. I am aware he is too young to understand the concept of danger but I have a responsibility to keep him safe and it’s making me so anxious. After his third attempt to run from the beach I have it a stern no and strapped him back into the push chair. Of course he cried and I gave him time to chill out before explaining again, if he runs away we will go home. My question is - do we go home? Is that the beach done? No shaming please - first time mum learning!

Just to add we always try distractions which work great for 5/10 mins but then he will take the next opportunity. His speech and understanding is also really good for his age.

Yes, you go home. If you have said you will go home if he does it again, then you follow through on that. You won’t have to do this many times at all, because he will learn very quickly that you mean exactly what you say.
I live by the rule that I never threaten my kids with any consequence that I’m not prepared to do. Otherwise they don’t know where they stand and it’s confusing for them.
I have tried telling my husband this many times but he continually makes empty threats with them. And guess what, the kids are a struggle for him all the time!
So go home if you’ve said you will. Then try again tomorrow. Hopefully if the same thing happens then he will understand that you are not messing around when you explain there will be consequences. In the long term it will help you to keep him safe and enjoy things more without the anxiety.
You sound like you are doing an amazing job by the way, I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday!

I agree if you say there’ll be a consequence for a behaviour then you need to actually follow through with it.
My son is just over 2 and we’ve always tried to carry out anything we’ve said and it does become effective fairly quickly. For example, we tell him he has to hold our hands when we are walking near a road or in a car park etc. For a while he would try to run off, or pull his hand out of ours. We said if you aren’t going to hold our hands then we’ll have to carry you/ put you in the buggy etc. Then the next time he let go or ran off we’d just do as we said. Now when we get to a carpark or road he’ll hold our hand without fuss 90% of the time.
We also make a bit of a joke about it with him so it is sort of fun for him now - so we say we’ve got to hold hands so we don’t get squished and flat like a pancake. Now he’ll often take our hand and say ‘not be a pancake’, showing he understands it, but it’s sort of fun as well.

Yes, if you say you'll go home if you do it again, you need to follow through. At this age, though, I usually went round the 'if you do X, you'll have to go back in the buggy/sit with me and not play for bit' circle a few times before going for the 'we're going home' consequence. As long as I felt I could keep everyone safe, I thought it was useful to give them more chances in quick succession to make the running away = boring sitting time connection. It's also useful for days out when going home is going to substantially affect other members of the family as well. There does come a point, though, where they're clearly not capable of managing the behaviour you need on that day, and it's kinder to everyone to cut things short.