May or may not be in the right topic, but if you have a 2-2.5 yo I'd like to hear from you

[mindalina]

Apologies in advance if I go on a bit. My ds is 9 months, and I've recently started watching my friend's ds for a few hours twice a week while she's at work. Friend's ds is 2.4 and on the whole a lovely well behaved child.

HOWEVER, sometimes he gets very frustated with my ds and bites or hits him. This doesn't particularly bother me, I know it's not malicious and he rarely if ever actually hurts my ds. My problem is trying to say things to him in a way that he (friend's ds) understands. I think I think that he should understand more than he does, if that makes sense, but he's not even two and a half yet so am I being too hard on him? I want to try to explain why he shouldn't bite or push, or why he should share toys with my ds, but the way he looks at me I just don't think he gets what I'm saying.

How do I explain to him what I want to say so he can understand? At not quite 2.5, is it even worth trying to explain? Or should I just continue saying "Don't do x" and moving him away?

I hope this makes sense and someone can help me, I've NO experience whatsoever of toddlers, and some days it feels like I spend the whole four hours telling him not to do things. I don't want him to think he comes here to be told off, I want this to be a nice place for him to come when Mummy's at work.

Mindalena will be ridiculously grateful for any advice given whatsoever Thanks in advance

My ds is nearly 2.5, he does understand just about everything that is said to him. Whether he choses to take any notice is another matter. Do get lots of either looking blankly at me or selective deafness as he continues to do whatever it was he was doing!

He knows punching and biting is definately wrong - however he does bite (normally older dd) and when he does I make sure he knows it's wrong.

Hummm. Mine are older (3.5) & younger (20mths) so may not be the expert on the exact age window, but here goes:

• sharing is probably not something he'll get for a good while yet. Which isn't to say it isn't good to model the behaviour/try & encourage it (dd understands turn-taking, for eg, but only because she has an older brother, so lots of practice
• hitting or biting I think they should understand by 2.5 is not appropriate. Which isn't to say they'll stop doing it. I'd ask his mother how she deals with discipline - you need to be consistent with what happens at home - eg I would at that age have done some sort of naughty step type thing with ds. With dd, so far, I just remove her & ignore her (after telling her no biting, biting hurts). She knows very well that biting & hitting are not acceptable. She still does both occassionally, but will nearly always say sorry (probably largely meaningless, but again, picked up from her big bro). You could try explaining a little bit - I say to dd 'No hitting. Hitting hurts. ds is sad' - dd plays out hitting & people feeling sad & needing cuddles with her dolls, so I know she understands....

Distraction, & keeping them totally amused as much as you can are still the best things, imho.

Oh, and around 2.5 I spent most of MY time telling ds off

HTH!

My ds is 2.4 and went through a stage of hitting-only me i would like to add!A friend of mine suggested the naughty step idea.After three days he stopped hitting altogether.He understands EVERYTHING and i think most toddlers at this age do.I would speak to their mum and see what plan of action she wants to take after all she should be enforcing the right and wrong in them.IMO it shouldnt be left up to you.If all else fails teach your lo kung fu!

Thank you all for your advice. If his mum is here she will tell him off. If he has been especially naughty or done something actively dangerous he gets a little smack - obviously I am not going to be doing this! He does have time-outs, but I'm not convinced he understands why he's having the time-out although he will apologise afterwards you have to tell him what he's apologising for.

I doubt I'll bring it up with his mum, she is one of my best friends and I'd hate for things to get awkward over the kids. As I say it's not a massive problem as he rarely actually hurts ds, and I know that my friend is horrified that her ds bites so I don't want to make her feel guilty about it.

I guess the best course of action is pretty much to carry on as I have been, telling him "no" if he does something naughty and giving him a time-out if he doesn't stop when he's told to.

I just wasn't sure how much the average 2.5yo understands, so wanted to make sure I wasn't either being really hard on him (in my head, you understand, not actually giving him a hard time!) for not understanding, or being taken for a mug if he's deliberately not understanding me iyswim? He is a lovely boy most of the time - when I was pg he used to sit on my lap and cuddle my bump! Generally he is quite good with my ds - at the moment they are sitting looking at a book together.
I guess we are just in a kind of "getting-used-to-each-other" sort of phase at the moment - he's only been coming on his own for two weeks.

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