Am I relaxed or wrong?

[ProudMamaBear92]

Our son is 15 months and we’re absolutely smitten with him. We(me, DS & DS) have Grampa live with us too.

DS is now a full blown tornado toddler, climbing everything, exploring, etc and I find it fascinating/ funny and cute. I let him climb, obviously nothing high or dangerous, usually couch/coffee table, I just find constantly restricting him doesn’t help, he does it more, and it’s exhausting and unnecessary. DH and DG get angry with me for not telling him off, letting him get bumps and occasionally breaks unimportant things. It’s turning into arguments now between us and I don’t want to punish my toddler for exploring and learning new things. Obviously bad behaviour isn’t tolerated but he’s so full of life and he’s all giggles all the time.

Who's right?

Can you get him a pikler triangle and slide for indoors? Mine loves climbing too but I wouldn’t let him climb on the coffee table. There could be a hot drink on there etc one day. I’d redirect him to outdoors or an indoor climbing set.

Impossible to tell unless one was exposed to his behavior. I would say if his behaviour causes others annoyance at some point boundaries need to be established especially with a boy. Otherwise he could turn into the kind of self entitled arse women are here because of.😉

My son likes to climb too. All toddlers love climbing and jumping about, but allowing him to climb on the coffee table seems really daft. You do have to teach him appropriate behaviour and socialise him for the rest of the world.

Get him a pikler triangle and slide, take him to the park, take him to soft plays. Couch cushions on the floor to clamber about on I can handle, but not climbing on the coffee table.

We've just done this. We moved the coffee table out the way when Dc1 (3yo) arrived and got a totter and tumble play mat in its place. I don't want to always say no either so removed the temptation to climb on the furniture instead by moving the coffee table well out the way. I don't mind them climbing up onto the sofa to get up on it, but I don't want them climbing on tables and thinking that's ok. I regularly say "sofa is for sitting!" on and "arm rest is for arms!" Etc. My DC2 (14m) is much more of a climber than DC1 was. I give them opportunities to climb - up and down the stairs, on and off the sofa, on and off the bed, up into the highchair. My DC2 recently started emptying all the toy boxes and turned them to stand on so instead of breaking all the boxes (think Duplo box) I got my yoga block out for balancing on, my toddler bathroom step and set up a little obstacle course. Went down a hoot!

Anyways I can't keep up so we've just invested in a Pikler with a reversible ramp and climbing wall side.

Can you do something similar giving them sensible and safe opportunities to climb while maintaining boundaries?

It’s probably a good idea set some boundaries now and try to stop the climbing on inappropriate things such as the coffee table. It might be cute now but it won’t be as cute when they climb onto a table as a 3yo at a restaurant or a friend’s house. You don’t need to punish him, just tell them the table is not for climbing on and gently take them off. Keep repeating and they’ll eventually learn that tables are not for climbing.

Thing is he's not going to be a cute little toddler for long. When he's four or five he may still want to climb, even higher. You going to suddenly turn around and say no? That's going to be confusing.
It's like people laughing at their kids burping, then getting cross as when they keep doing it slightly older.
Set limits. Let him know what's safe to climb or mess around, and when it isn't.

You wouldn't be punishing him, just letting him know that climbing on the coffee table isn't ok. In the same way you would if he tried to climb on something dangerous. A coffee table isn't a great place to climb - potential for hot drinks is presumably quite high?