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.

Oh yes, and the throwing food. It took as much patience as I had not to lose it with that phase. I would not speak or look at DS while I picked it up/ out of my hair/ scraped it off the walls. And, like others, I would just give him a tiny bit at a time.

It was almost as hard training DH to do the same as it was training DS not to do it!

Only read the first page so may just be repeating what others have said.
I tend to do the distract, redirect, give information etc type stuff. So typically I would say - don't bite my leg; here, bite this (something soft and biteable). OR 'legs aren't for biting' or just distract him from bite-uness (just useing the biting as an example). I would also probably try and work out why he was biting which would change what I did - so if it was the sheer joy of biting I would distract but if it was teething I'd give something else to chew on.

I'm also a big fan of www.amazon.co.uk/Talk-Kids-Will-Listen-Child/dp/1853407054 and find phrases like 'when you ...(bite me) I feel ... (upset) because ... (it hurts)' really helpful. They won't necessarily understand at this age but I have found it lays the ground work for later on. My 6yo DS useful this formulation a lot now when dealing with his younger siblings or even DH and I (when you don't let me eat sweets I feel cross 'cos it's mean ) and give them a vocabularly of feeling words to work with.

How bout baby gate for ur kitchen...its a dangerous area...a lil common sense goes a long ways

You MUST remember that a child's currency is attention- any form. If its behaviour which is good then give it attention, if behaviour is bad then no attention, sitting out of the room is a good example. Make sure you don't feed 'bad' behaviour with lots of attention, be clear and consistant.

Above all, if the child does it because they know it is wrong then stop talking about it with them, they already know and you're just feeding it.

Just reigniting this thread because have the same problem with 20 month old twin girls, and one is bullying the other, and it's breaking my heart. Exactly like that AWFUL episode with the spoonbills in Attenborough's Africa!!

Details here:

likepeasinapod.com/2013/12/04/when-twins-attack/

Advice very gratefully received. We're doing the no attention thing by shoving the offender in the playpen but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. And it's all over my attention and lap...should I just bugger off for a year?!