How the hell do you discipline a 21 month old?

[marzipananimal]

I'm open to suggestions from anyone - from Smackers to AP hippies! (Can you tell I'm a bit desperate?!)

DS is generally a pretty good natured, lively toddler and is reasonably laid back BUT he has a real cheeky/defiant streak that I'm really struggling to deal with. I try distraction or 'you can't do that but you can do this' type thing but that doesn't work for every situation.

Particular problems at the moment are: biting (me and DH, not other children fortunately), throwing food, touching oven, and opening fridge freezer.

I'm tearing my hair out at times. I think it's difficult because I'm not entirely surely how much he understands (he's not talking much yet so communication can be tricky), and I struggle to keep my temper :(

Any advice gratefully received.

Watching with interest. Thank you ladies for all the ideas.

My DS is getting on for three but quite immature, our issues at the moment are running away (leaving me bawling like a fishwife in the street), sitting/lying down and refusing to move, throwing things and constant screeching at the top of his voice. He is really REALLY high energy and needs to be exercised like a puppy.

I have been trying various things but I think I need to pick a consistent approach and stick to it. I will try calm, firm talking and time out.

I do try to remind myself before I lose my temper, or cry, or abandon him in the street that he was a very tiny prem and we didn't think he would make it, so the fact he is a little sod is quite amazing.

I also sometimes have to ignore cats' bum faces and let him get on with it if he's safe, life's too short.

It's a hideous stage OP, so you have my sincere sympathy. DS2 has just turned 2 and is a PITA a lot of the time. Dealing with this age is one of the reasons we won't be having any more.

I don't know what the answer is apart from saying 'no' repeatedly and redirecting their interest. It's extremely hard not to lose your temper when they are doing the same thing over and over.

I guess it's just one of those 'stages', but bloody hell it goes on forever and is massively tedious. A great case for a few hours in nursery here and there if you can afford it. My SIL used to work 3 days but her son was in nursery for 4. It gave her some time to herself and made a real difference when she wanted to get stuff done around the house.

So i also have a 21mth DS who is generally a delight but is quite often occasionally violent. Bites/pinches/hits when frustrated but also sometimes when excited. Also throws food, opens oven and freezer.
For the oven I have gone with 'hot hot etc' and he now doesn't touch it when it is on (however he does still try to load it with trays etc when off!) -work in progress. The freezer and cupboards I do distraction in theory.
Food throwing i am struggling with -currently i say 'push it away if you have finished' and try and ignore the bad behaviour (spoon banging/throwing etc), distract, and praise the good behaviour.
For the violence, I tried naughty corner but he didn't really get it, so now if it is just excited boisterous violence I say 'gently' and get him to stroke instead. If it is cross violence -i hold his hands (so i don't get hit again), say a firm 'no' and ask for an apology which always gets me a cuddle and a stoke and seems to mainly diffuse the anger.
I'm not always good at sticking to my own rules and if i feel i may explode I reckon it is better to dump him in a corner for a minute while i calm down than shout .
I was feeling quite positive about recent progress but last week i got called in by nursery because he had bitten another child -a first and a new low .
Would be interested to know if you find any solutions and what works for you.

If 16mo DS3 bites (or pinches, which is his latest one, only me and his much older siblings though), I remove him or put him down. The short, sharp shock of not getting his cuggles works.

The hitting the TV and touching the printer, I remove him 1,000,000 times a day and say 'NO' in a stern voice. They DO learn in the end. Though you go batty repeating yourself in the meantime.

This is a good time to remember the MN mantra : This too shall pass!

Bracken, when your DD is wriggling and screaming as you put her in the pram, she is letting you know that she wants to walk. When DS3 does this (usually when I'm in a rush to get DS1 & DS2 to school), I explain to him that he will have to go in the pram now, but he can get out and walk at tescos.

It placated him enough for me to get him strapped in, but if I don't get him out at tescos, he will scream until he is got out and allowed to walk.

The nappy thing - have you tried potty training? I had one that was like this at 18mo, turned out he was trying to let me know he was ready for the potty! It's harder potty training a not-very verbal DC, but it IS possible. Maybe get her some knickers and give her the choice of whether to use big girls knickers and do her weed and pops on the potty or toilet, or laying down nicely to get her nappy on. DS1 was out of nappies day and night at 18mo and has never had an accident, despite still seeing and pooing in his nappy the day before he stopped wearing them! He was just ready, but unable to express that fully to me.

Ignore my typos. Bloody Autocorrect is almost as frustrating as 16mo DS3!

I prewarn mine about what we are going to do/when we are going to leave/what they are going to have constantly. 'OK guys, you have two mins and then we have to leave the park' 'I need to get bread from the shop but we are not going to buy any sweets. You are getting sweets on Saturday with granny remember'

I like to concentrate on when they next can do/have something 'Yes those sweets look lovely and we will have one after tea'

What age is your toddler?

I haven't read through all the posts so sorry if this has been mentioned but when my DS1 went through the biting phase and I had tried saying no and explaining it hurt to no avail, I actually bit him back. He bawled his eyes out but he didn't bite again for a long while and when he did I bit him back again and he never bit me or anyone else again.

I don't generally agree with smacking etc but a quick tap on the hand with a firm NO did work quite well.

With regards to temper tantrums in public places, I would walk away and sneakily keep an eye on him until the worst had passed and then cuddle him and calm him down and not make a big deal of it.

It is so hard dealing with a defiant toddler and I am not looking forward to DS2 reaching the terrible two's at all but just keep reassuring yourself that it is normal developmental behaviour and it will pass.

Doh, just seen the title How do you discipline a 21 month old. Shows how tired I am asking silly questions

My twins are just gone two and I find them very hard at the moment. One headbutts and hits all the time, the other scratches and bites. They fight like cat and dog and rip chunks out of each other. I have no patience with them and shout 'no' about a million times a day. They just laugh in my face and it infuriates me. I make them sound vile but actually they're a delight mostly!

I also have older twins, aged six, who I don't remember as nearly as much work. I was also much calmer, able to do all the 'right' things like reinforcing the good behaviour with praise, ignoring unwanted behaviour or distracting with a simple 'no we don't do that, let's do this instead', but I just seem to have forgotten all the techniques. Or maybe I'm just too knackered and resort to screeching like a harridan.

it is really hard work.

Start with yourself, be kind to yourself, give yourself a break, and do not think all other parents are saints who never shout, never cry or never lose the plot. They do, too.

It gets a bit easier after about 2,5.

Lots of exercise, very regular meal and bed times, really helped my tots to calm a bit. I am quite a laid-back person, but my kids made me quite a strict mum with lost of predictability in their lives.

Mine also had a nap in the afternoon until they were 3. When they did not sleep anymore, they would have Quiet Time for an hour, in their cot/bed.

It is gruesome, isn't it? Watching this thread with interest - DS is 22 months and a Total Nightmare at the moment. No advice, I'm afraid. Mine isn't very verbal and I do think that makes it all worse. And I loathe the routine - I can see that it helps DS, but it drives me mental!

Thanks everyone, it's good to know that others are going through the same sort of things.
DS did start going to nursery one morning a week in Feb/March and that has really helped me to have a little bit more patience with him. It's still a struggle though. I have no idea how single mums with no one to give them a break cope!

SnorkMaiden 2 sets of twins, wow! How did you react at the scan when you found out with the second pair?

The Tizzy Hall holding method looks good although I don't think I'd have the patience to do it 30 times! And it's often while I'm cooking that he's the worst so difficult to do it then. I think actually I ought to move tea time a bit earlier so he's not so tired and grumpy while I'm getting it ready.

With our 2yr 3 month old we get the usual tantrums, egocentric behaviour etc, but the thing that grates is the food chucking thing. He gets the idea into his head (there's a split second glint in eye) and then the entire plate of dinner/cereal/whatever goes over one shoulder or another across the room.

We do the calm firm no, the explaining, the making him stay in chair until all cleaned up, and the naughty corner/time out. The problem is that 50% of the time in the naughty corner he just goes into hysterical laughter.

At his nursery they have the concept of 'time-out' followed by sorry/hug. To be consistent we shifted to their labels. His most recent pattern is doing something destructive, running laughing to the naughty corner, sitting down, running back and giving us a hug.

If you're getting the impression that this is a blinding success story then you're missing something! At the end of the day we just think it's a phase etc so grit your teeth and try not to give portion sizes that could coat an entire white wall...

DD has just turned 2. I started time-outs with her at about 20-21 months. I wasn't going to - thought it was too early - but then I saw a friend doing it with her very well-behaved DD and thought I'd gve it a shot - to my surprise, it totally works.

I remove her from the room or move away from people a bit. I sit her down and I hold both her hands. I tell her "You are having a time-out because you did x. That's not polite/that hurts/that's not allowed." Then I count out loud to 60. After I reach 60, I say "you had a time-out because you did x. I want you to say you're sorry." She says sorry, I say "You are not to do that again." Then I hug and kiss her and we go back to the scene of the crime. If she did something to someone else, I tell her to say sorry to that person too.

It works brilliantly with DD. She just stares at me while I count out the 60. I think that holding her hands while I look her in the eyes and count, helps her to calm down a bit. She takes it seriously. I have only once had to give her another time-out almost straight away - every other time, she has gone back and acted better. And if she starts to act up, I can say "do you need a time out?" and mostly she will stop whatever it is.

So far....

Our little one is nearly 7 weeks old, but a friend of ours who is a child development expert suggests the following techniques:

Three strikes and then time out (strike one is a warning, strike two is a stern warrning and then 3rd is time out. 1 minute for every year)
Reward charts (on a magnetic board so that smiley faces can be added and removed)
Removal of toys into a clear box with a lid which is put in for a week and then returned.

xx

I made a freezer lock with two of DH's belts that he couldn't open. Biting I have no ideas for but DS does it much less than he used to, we just put him down and ignore him when he bites. Touching the oven we say "burnies" and once he touched it and got burned (only an "ouch" not an actual burn) and now knows whats burnies means and responds when we say it. Throwing food I'm afraid we just have a really manky carpet :-(

brdgrl i'm going to try that! Whenever we try timeout ds doesn't stay there but suppernanny says to leave them alone and keep putting them back, i really like the idea of not giving attention but just counting, and he might learn to count at the same time!

On this website www.boysdevelopmentproject.org.uk there is a pdf download resource Discipline and Boys Who Are Under 5. I found it very useful.

There has been so much good advice but thought I would add a bit more (sorry if it is repeated)

Remember he is not even 2 yet and his understanding, remembering and idea of the future is very limited. Toddlers live in the here and now. I found time out did not really work until mine were at least 3.

Children on the whole are programmed to learn, experiment, have fun, test boundaries, challenge ideas, etc If they did not do this then they would not develop

Make your house as safe as possible so you are saying 'no' as little as possible and he can explore and challenge himself safely. Save the 'no' for when you really need to.

You are his teacher and his model - if you shout, smack, pull, etc then that he what he will do. If he does something wrong tell him it is wrong, move him away and then carry on (except for the biting where I would say 'no', then move him away then turn you back on him

Teach him what he should do - if he throws something say 'we don't throw the trains we push them along the track just like this, good boy you pushed the train'. Really emphasise the praise and move on from the negative as quickly as possible

Train him in little steps to do things like walking when you are out and about or walking in the supermarket. WHen you are in a hurry and have a lot to do keep him safely strapped in but when possible do a short trip with lots of praise and go home.

When I am cooking DS3 often sits on the side watching and 'talking' to me. Keeps him occupied - away from the cooker - and he loves it. Any messing around he gets put out of the kitchen.

Throwing food - silently and calming remove all food from in front of him then give it back when he realises. If he does it again remove again and only give back one bit at a time

Consider his sleeping / teeth - DS2 was always (still is in fact) a nightmare if he does not get enough sleep.

Check that the toys you have are challenging and interesting for him. Their play really start to develop at this age

Catch him being good! and really try and be as positive and calm as you can be!

I found DS1 absolutely infuriating (and bless him he still is and he is 6!) DS2 was much easier and so is DS3 (currently 23mnths). Partly I am sure because I am calmer, more confident, more consistent, partly because they have a good role model in their siblings (most of the time!) and partly because of their personality. I found the book 'Little Angels' by Dr Tanya Byron really useful and better than the Supernanny book.

I am rather old school I am afraid. My children are all grown up now but I did smack them when it was required which was not often but they all have had their tantrums and trials as they were growing up. I used a swift tap on the hands and an absolutely thunderous and firm 'NO!' when they did something wrong and then removed them from the situation they were in. If I said no they they knew I meant it and they knew what the consequences would be. It takes a lot but persevere with it - say no and MEAN no!! Ask your husband to do the same and back each other up - if one parent says no then the other one says no, and DON'T give in no matter what. It will probably drive you nuts but it is worth it in the end when you gain respect from your child as they know in no uncertain circumstances that you are the parent! And then when they do something good no matter how small - you go SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY overboard with the praise no matter where you are - you don't have to bribe just show them how pleased/proud you are when they do something right, and it does not matter where you are - you must behave consistently at all times, they soon get the message as to what type of mum and dad they want!!
Good luck persevere with it because eventually your child will be taller and stronger than you are and then you had better have it under control!! Mine are all grown up and much much taller than I but they all know who is boss in this house, we all respect each other, there is very little shouting and arguing (occasionally they do kick off but I usually wade in and win despite them being over 18!! I have a fairly quiet life now but it wasn't always so and it has taken a long time to get here!!

My ds bit at this age - I tried ignoring and it categorically did not work. I said a sharp no and firmly moved him away from me and then walked off to do something else - he had no attention from it. I would always refer to Dr Christopher Green's Toddler Taming - worked for me with 3 of the little darlings!

Good ideas lorisparkle, I like them!! Yes keep calm and collected (impossible I know!!) and teach them too. And yes keep them occupied in the supermarket - mine used to have a tiny trolley to push around and 'help' - make them feel important and clever when they achieve!! Yep safety - keep them out of the kitchen if possible - once saw the results of a hot cup of tea on a small child - very distressing indeed. Mine had a stable door type door to keep them out of the kitchen (my husband took the door off and sawed it in half and then refitted it again - worked a treat!! They could see me but they had no chance of getting into the kitchen and the staircase was gated off top and bottom)

marzipan We've been struggling with DS as well, he's about 19 months old. Whenever he does something naughty we sit him on his bottom, speak with him saying 'that is naughty, I do not like you climbing on the coffee table/touching the cooker/throwing your toys', we then make him 'give hugs to say sorry'. Then I often go get him an another activity for him to get stuck into.

I must admit a lot of my friends smack their littlies and have tried to tell me to do the same to DS. But after witnessing one of them discipline their toddler, I just couldn't do it, it's not right for us. Plus I feel DS isn't at an age where he doesn't connect his thoughts together ifyswim (say if he bites, he'll know that this is bad and he'll get told off).

Also pick your battles, some things don't actually matter in the long run. For us, it's DS refusing certain foods. I have to keep telling myself that he won't get to being twenty without eating fruit Ithenworrythathewill.

For anything that is going to hurt someone, I have always got down on DS's level, properly eyeballed him, and told him "NO"; this from when he was 4mo and bit me when BFing right up to now when, at 3.5, he lies on DD (9mo) and squashes her. We didn't start time out until he was 3 and he started hitting DD.

This is not to say that (a) this has always seemed to work and that (b) I have not, on very bad mummy occasions, shouted and sworn at DS when he has kicked me for the millionth time that day. He does now know that deliberately hurting people is wrong though and sometimes very shamefacedly takes himself to time-out

I've never stopped him touching the oven door as it seems to be well enough insulated not to actually burn. He learnt quite early on about hot things as our Rayburn is just a little bit too warm for comfort but not hot enough to cause damage. I think there's a lot to be said for a sort of "controlled danger"; humans are curious and we need to learn for ourselves sometimes!

The freezer has never been an issue but I did go through a phase of just shutting DS out of the kitchen whenever the washing machine was on as he thought it was brill to fiddle with it which meant that it would take a whole day for a load to get to the end of a cycle.