Does anyone do Unconditional Parenting with a 2 year old??

[nappyaddict]

There seems to be a lot of explaining things for it to work and I just don't think a 2 year old has the understanding for it to work. Would love to be proved wrong though

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Thinking back to a situation a while ago neither DS or the other child were holding or playing with anything. Apart from DS hurting that child I really wouldn't be able to guess another reason why she might have been. So what should I do if I musn't assume DS has hurt her?

I have read the book honest but I found it quite difficult to read. Am bidding on the how to talk book on ebay so perhaps that will help me aswell.

Hi, pls can I hijack a bit to ask for some advice?

DD (4) is very good at playing alone. DS (5) not as good.

So when we have a day at home together, it is easy to do things with DS alone but whenever DD wants me to play with her alone DS always wants to join in. The game she wants to play is always a variation on mummies and daddies where we make various soft toys or dolls speak and move around according to DDs ideas. She decides exactly what happens so it works fine with me but of course DS has his own ideas. Either it ends up with DD getting cross or me saying to DS that he needs to give us time alone to play. Or both!

How would you handle this?

Also DS gets very excited by these games so when we are playing a game like that altogether he uses such a loud voice! I am quite tolerant of loud at other times but it truly hurts my ears to have his high pitched almost shouting voice right in my ear (we are usually sitting in a close circle on the floor). I find myself continually saying 'too loud' but I feel such a nag.

What an interesting thread, I have only had time to read the first half a dozen posts. I'll read the rest later.

I think I do 'some' of this unconditional parenting with my DD 2.4 years old. I frequently explain what we are doing and why. I have a hand sign and a phrase 'DD, In five minutes we are going to do x' Which I use to warn her that we are changing location and activities which seems to prevent issues.

I also give her many choices in her life. Interestingly my mum commented on how well (relatively for her age) that my daughter listens and responds to others. Then in the next breath critised me for listening to her when I asked my daughter to put her socks and shoes on in the house as it was cold and she declined and so I left it. I tried to explain to my mum that it wasn't an important issue and DD would ask for her shoes if she got cold and by listening and respecting her choices for the little things, meant she listened to me about the bigger things.

I am no push over and I do have some things I won't budge on, carseats, reins and/or holding hands outside the house, no biting or hitting.

I think having some control over their lives within flexible boundaries makes for happier secure children.

Which is why we went out yesterday with toddler dressed in top and jeans (I insisted on this base layer due to the bad weather) and my toddler still got a 'summer dress' i.e. a pink fairy dressing up dress, a yellow umberella and my old empty massive handbag to set her outfit off. Things like that don't matter and she still got to wear a dress which is all she wanted to do

Just wanted to add my thoughts... I've been loosely adhering to UP principles since I read the book when DS1 was about 3. It was a bit of an epiphany, I'm not exaggerating.

DS1 is 4.5 now and I look back to when he was 2 and how I was about toddler groups/hitting etc and kind of feel a bit I now realise that I was probably not being very effective about trying to balance his needs with mine (first baby, new area, huge adjustment, fending off depression etc.) and this was getting in the way of our relationship. It's not that my needs weren't valid, but I wish I'd realised earlier that I needed to be entirely focused on his needs in the parenting relationship and look at mine in a separate sense, IYSWIM.

Now with DS2 (17 months) if toddler groups/playdates etc. are becoming stressful I ditch them immediately and conclude that he's not enjoying them for whatever reason. Yes, it sometimes feels a bit of a bummer that I miss out on coffee/chat/etc but I just resolve to put those needs on hold and make sure I meet them more effectively at another time.

One other comment about UP and how you offer guidance rather than punishments for 'bad' behaviour... DS1 has some autistic tendencies so we've never had much luck getting through to him by trying to mobilise his empathy. he just doesn't really care! It's difficult because most autism specialists use quite hardline conditioning/reward/punishment methods to compensate for lack of empathy. So we've had to resort to saying 'not allowed' which sounds horribly un-UP but we've agonised over it and realised that in the particular case of DS1 it just shorthand for the more empathic meaning. We say 'not allowed' but it's still up to him how he responds to that.

Duchesse, I feel the same about some things I did/said when DS was little. DD has had a much better parent for her early years.

But I think this would have been the case anyway, even if I had not read UP. You learn by experience.

Just try to think about the positive side. If you feel you have adapted your parenting more to his needs around age 3, that is still pretty early and he is not going to remember any of the earlier years.

If an incident happened at playgroup but they told me about it when I picked him up should I say anything to DS about it or is it too late then? Obviously the incident would have been dealed with appropiately by playgroup staff anyway so is that enough or would you mention it aswell?