Adam is, of course, at the ‘terrible twos.’ And I’ll probably jinx myself, but they aren’t all that terrible. Not that he doesn’t have his moments. He’s hardly perfect or an angel!
There are, also of course, 10,000 parenting books about how to handle toddlers and their discipline. And I’ve read…none of them.
I only own 4 books about parenting, anyway. One about how Adam developed in the womb the of which escapes me and I’m too lazy to go look, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, some dad’s book my brother sent Simon and How to Talk so Your Kids will Listen and Listen so Your Kids Will Talk. The only one I’ve actually read cover to cover was the developing baby one and that was mostly so I could post on here how big he was as he grew in my tummy!
And so Simon and my parenting style has been created by trial and error. Some from ideas I’ve gotten from others I know, of course, but mostly I’ve just used my instincts and Simon has pretty much followed my lead.
So what do we do?
Well, we use time out for some things. Things such as not listening after being told not to do something more than once, 2 minutes time out. Some things are instant time out, such as climbing furniture, hitting and pushing.
And I’ve developed a count to 10 method to get him to do things. I have never, once, in my life seen count to three work and I gave a lot of thought as to why that might be, keeping in mind I’ve never studied child development or psychology! Based on my observation it’s because three just isn’t long enough for a toddler, whose brain is racing a million miles an hour and to whom whatever they are doing is the most important thing in the world, to stop what they are doing and make the decision to listen to Mummy and/or Daddy.
So I tell him what I want to do and I count to 10. ‘Adam, come to the table for dinner by the time I count to 10 or I’ll come get you.’ And I count. It is very rare that he doesn’t come and do what I want him to do by the time I get to 8 or 9. And if he doesn’t do it at 10? I make him do whatever it is I want him to do. I also tend to say ’10…end of free will’ as I grab him.
It works for getting dressed, for picking a toy, really for most things.
And it has the advantage that he’s learning to count!
I say easy way or hard way and The Cub ALWAYS chooses the easy way as he gets to keep his stuff or do what he was doing before when he’s gone to the potty/eaten/helped tidy up.
Small people are very intelligent about these things 🙂
dxx