Behaviour Management

[Titchyboomboom]

Hi all! Toddlers napping, so I thought I would grab a chance to ask a couple of questions on here to all of you experienced childminders out there...

1. How do you deal with cheeky toddlers who have decided to throw their food all over the room and laugh when I tell them no...
2. How would you deal with a minded child who has started to scream in the face of your child when not wanting to share etc
3. Do you have separate toys for your own and minded children?

Sorry for all the questions, they have all been playing on my mind so I thought I would put them all on one thread

Any help and advice appreciated as I really want to set a standard early on and provide a consistent approach to behaviour, toys etc

My DD is 17 months and I look after a little girl who is 18 months.

Cheers!! xxx

They say to reward, postive behaviour and agnore negative behaviour. But I would make my 'no', very direct and alittle louder than normal voice. Always at the child,s level and with explanation. Look cross and unhappy and take the child away from a situation of non-sharing and give each child a different toy and put that toy away. Reward each child for positive behaviour, even if that's 20-1 to your DD. I hope this helps.

Def set boundaries early on - explain in a non angry way why you're not happy with the behaviour and always praise good behaviour. My dc a bit older but as a general rule, anything they don't want mindees getting hold of is kept in their rooms and out of bounds. Wouldn't let any minded child scream in my dc face - remove the mindee, explain why that's not on and ask them to say sorry - even tinies can say sorry with a little cuddle.

Agree with the sharp no, not acceptable. And lots of big smiles and positive praise when they do something nice or are well behaved. Apparently I look like a slightly mad childrens TV presenter when out with my mindees and DD (all 2 and under).

We are working on taking turns, although the toy is taken away if the children are unkind (same rules for DD as for the mindees). If they start to get aggresive I do a short (30 sec) time out in the cot I usually have up for nap times. I use this time to remove the item they are fighting over (or finding another similar item).

And yes DD has seperate toys to the 'work' toys but with the work toys all around the house she tends to play with them and she often wants toys out that the others will enjoy like her happyland things so stuff often gets muddled up anyway.

And if they are being particularly trying I like to count down the minutes until wine o clock!!!

When I 1st started minding, my kids were quite a bit older than the ones I minded, so I told Ofsted I didnt want My childrens bedrooms registered as I feel that they need somewhere to escape to and chill if need be..
They're 'toys' have also stayed upstairs, if they do bring them down they are expected to share, Ive always been very clear on this with them.

As for the throwing of food Its not happened with the minded kids but with my own two, I either placed it out of reach on the table with a very firm NO, and explanation then given it back, if it happened again, I took it away..

Screaming in others faces.. not acceptable either, again a big firm NO with explanation, and Id either remove the child (for a few seconds) or the toy from the situation.

Minded child has same rules re table manners as my DCs - no throwing or chucking food on the floor. If you throw food, you get down from the table because you've had enough and that's that.

My mindee is not great at sharing but I cast-iron insist on turn-taking with the toys. My DCs have things that are theirs that they're allowed to keep separate if they want to but if they bring something down when my mindee is here they know they have to take turns just as though it was a 'public' toy. And in general that's enough. Mindee does have a hissy fit sometimes but I explain it over and over again that we take turns on things, he's had a turn and now it's someone else's turn, and why don't we go and play on this other cool thing instead. Distraction is great. And when he does hand something over at the end of his turn (a two-minute sand timer is a fantastic investment, by the way!) he gets lauded with praise and applause. It's getting better.

I would also recommend never using the word 'share' - to a toddler it seems to mean 'give this thing I love passionately to someone else until the end of time'. But they do understand the concept of 'he has it now but I will have it soon'.