Suggest a book for disciplining a toddler

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just pulled up a thread I started a few years back soliciting advice for a new father. Well, that was over two years ago, and we now have a toddler (and he has a baby brother due in the next few days!).

I think he is a normal two year old, and generally relatively easy. But, my wife and I have been having some disagreements over discipline. Let’s just say that she is considerably more permissive than I am! He is such a pleasure to be around when my wife is not around, but when she is around, he seems to know that he can eventually get his way if he is just persistent enough.

So, I’m looking for both advice, as well as suggestions for books that might have worked for you on this topic. I think if she sees things in print, that she might be more amenable to starting to lay down the law. I don’t want to have a brat!

2

My father would pick any volume of the encyclopedia to whack us with.

3

Kinda related, probably not, but I want to tell this story.
My wife and I were hanging out with my nephew, he was a bit less than 2 at this time. He kept trying to touch the light switch.

Me: Stop touching that or I’ll spank you.
Wife: Don’t threaten to spank him! He’s not your kid.
Me: But I’m his uncle. It’s my right to spank him if I deem necessary.
Wife: But he still isn’t your kid. At least ask his mom first.
Me: Fine. {to sister-in-law} If the kid’s acting up do I have permission to spank him if I deem necessary?
SiL looks at me like I’m stupid: Of course you can. Why would you ask such a stupid question?

4

Moving to Cafe Society.

5

That’s horrible! It is just a toddler. A rolled up magazine should work well enough for another year or two.

6

If your wife has to read something in print, I’m sure you can find a plethora of advice websites. Save yourself the money you’d spend on a hardcopy book, and buy yourself a hard, hard heart.

That’s the best discipline tool a parent can have.

My granddaughter is 2-1/2. And that kid is gorgeous, personable, SMART, and one of the best little schemers and connivers I’ve run across in a long, long time. After you tell her “no,” she’ll look you right in the eye when she tries to do it AGAIN.

She’s GREAT at changing the topic, too, when you are scolding her! (takes after her Grandpa…)

You don’t have to be a boot camp DI. But you have to decide (and Mom absolutely needs to be on the same page) what is “no” and what is okay.

If Mom is still being too much of a softy, have her watch a couple of episodes of “Beyond Scared Straight.” You’ll see a bunch of teen brats who have never been told “no” in their entire lives.

My son is nearly a foot taller than I am, and I could bring him to his knees with a glare.

Most discipline with a toddler is redirecting. The kid wants to play in the knife drawer, you give him some blocks and a truck and say, “We’ll play with these now.” You also rearrange your entire house so all the poison, the sharp things, and the expensive breakables are only accessible with a stepladder.

But there are times when you have to say “NO” and absolutely mean it. This means you gotta get UP OUT OF YOUR CHAIR and handle the situation immediately. Too many parents think that sitting in the living room is a God given right, and the kid can be managed by remote control (i.e., yelling)

But the honest truth? Toddlerhood, to me, is the BEST part of a baby’s life. The kid is wide-eyed at discovering the whole world, and he’s a sponge for information.

Congratulations on #2 arriving soon! If you want to have a GREAT video opportunity, put the new baby on a blanket on the floor, and let Big Brother observe. Stay close by to avert any catastrophe, but simply watch and listen.
~VOW

7

Book learning ain’t gonna help a toddler. Hit 'em with a small stick, I says!

8

I was in a store yesterday and this woman was there with her three-year old kid. They bought some cheap toy and the mom handed it to the kid, who started shrieking “Give me a bag! Give me a bag!” The mom and sales clerk were laughing at this and the mom said to the little girl - “tell the lady what you are”. The little girl said “I’m a spoiled brat!” and the two women laughed some more. It was obviously a well-known shtick for this kid. I smiled at the kid and said, “And is that a good thing?” She was old enough to know better.

StG

9

I wasn’t merely joking. I suggest that you neither hit your children, nor read books to learn how to raise your children by reading books. My parents chose those methods, and the outcome was not pretty.

10

I can’t suggest a book, but when we had our son, we also had a hard time getting on the same page with discipline and we had advice coming in from lots of different people. We tried to weed out the good advice from the crap…which was…difficult to say the least. These are the things that really work for us (our son is 6 now and an awesome kid, if I do say so myself).

So…my advice (worth what you paid for it) is:

  1. Try not to make threats that you have no intention of following through. (This advice was from my mom. Bless her!) My husband and I took a while to get on the same page with this, but now we are mostly good at it…it’s difficult to do sometimes. We have some friends that have a super smart 3 year old that walks all over them because he knows their threats are idle threats. Example: We were at their house on Dec 23rd and the kid didn’t want to help our son pick up toys in the play-room. So daddy threatens him with “Pick up the toys now or we will give away all of your Christmas presents!” Kid didn’t buy that for a second. No dad is going to give away all of his kid’s Christmas presents. Especially not overindulgent dads like this one. When we left, they were still in the play-room crying and yelling. We had a talk with our kiddo in the car about how great he did picking up toys without arguing. He said, “I know…geez.” :smiley:

  2. Try to say “yes” to things once in a while. Toddlers hear No! No! No! all day. If it’s not going to hurt them and it’s a minor inconvenience to you, say yes for a change. Let them play in the bathroom sink once in a while or play with the noisy toy in the living room or whatever. (Advice I think I got from this very board somewhere and it has served us well.) Also known as “Pick your battles.” :smiley:

  3. Choices are good. Too many choices are not. My husband struggled with this when our son was still a toddler. He’d be fighting to get the kiddo dressed and having no luck…because he gave him 6 shirts and told him to pick out the one he wanted to wear. I’d go in, narrow it down to two…“Do you want to wear this one or that one?” “That one?” OK! Dressed in 5 minutes.

  4. More advice from my mom: “Tell” don’t “ask” AKA - No false choices. Tell the kid what you expect, don’t ask him/her in question format, especially if you’ve already decided what you want the outcome to be. “Do you want to go to bed right now?” is not the way to get the kid to say “Sure!” and head to bed. Instead, say “Time for bed!” Also, if you say “Do you want choice A or choice B?” when you really, really want the kid to choose B, the kid is NEVER gonna pick the one you want. I think this is the best piece of advice anyone ever gave us…and it was also the hardest to implement. We still sometimes fall into this trap.

  5. “5 more minutes” is great, but not if you keep allowing 5 more after that and 5 more…kids soon learn that they can keep getting more from you. If you give the 5 minute warning, stick to it. Same with “one more xyz thing” We switched to “This is the LAST piece of candy you can have now.” etc instead of “one more” because last seems to be more final and doesn’t lead to another and another and another…

of course YMMV.

11

To Train Up a Child

Don’t take me seriously. This guy and his wife are cocksmoking fundie scumbags who should both be in prison being ass-fucked by 800-pound gorillas. But just look at how the reviews are split, and read a few of them.

12

War and Peace. Whenever he acts out, he has to read a couple of pages aloud

13

'm not a parent, nor do I plan to be. My experience with kids is limited to my cousins and several years working at a summer camp. Tamarin has good advice.

The last year I went to camp, one of the division directors was trying to feed a little boy (he was probably in first grade) who was apparently away from home for the first time. He didn’t want dinner - I got the impression it wasn’t anything he was used to eating. She kept offering him choices - ‘well do you want a sandwich? or some chicken nuggets? or…’ I wanted to walk over there and smack her over the head. He’s ten! (or whatever) He’s having a meltdown, he’s hungry which means he can’t think anyway, if he doesn’t want dinner he gets a sandwich! (That sounds really mean, but the first-time campers often had trouble the first couple of days - but they often came back).

One useful thing I learned at camp - if you can, tell the kids what to do instead of what not to do. (Walk! instead of Don’t run! at the pool, for example). I don’t know if it was better for the kids of us, but at least you don’t feel like all you say is no.

14

Tamarin’s stuff is right on target!

  1. Follow-through is CRITICAL. That is the biggest problem when parents don’t want to get up out of their chairs. It’s also a problem when you are out in public. “Put it down NOW,” means if Kid doesn’t put that whatever down, you have to get up and take it away, RIGHT THAT MOMENT. “Knock it off, or we’re leaving,” means if the kid keeps screaming in the supermarket, you yank Kid out of the cart seat and you walk out of the store, forget about shopping right now. BTDT. Scroll up to the point where I said I could make a giant teenager drop to his knees by a single glare. The reason I could is that I had taken the same kid out of the grocery store/restaurant/church when he couldn’t behave. My kids were that screaming brat you hear ONLY a few times.

  2. Pick your battles is absolutely right. You get TIRED of yelling, really! Spontaneous hugs and kisses are just as important as vitamins to help a kid grow! Does it REALLY matter if Kid takes off his clothes and turns everything inside out? Nahhh. Save the argument for when he wants to juggle the steak knives.

  3. Choices are good…but a smart, sneaky kid might figure out how to turn the tables on you, LOL. I heard the story about a kid who wasn’t allowed to play outside after dinner. Once the table was cleared, he asked his dad: “Do you want me to leave by the front door or the back door when I go outside?”

  4. Yeah, TELL don’t ASK. YOU are the adult. Some things are non-negotiable. Bedtime. Bathtime. Green beans and NOT chocolate for dinner.

  5. “In a minute” is HORRIBLE in the teen years. I asked my son to remove his shoes from the living room, and I got the “in a minute” song. Several times. So I picked up his shoes, opened the door, and threw them into the front yard.

Kids are precious and terrible.
~VOW

15

There’s nothing wrong with having one parent be a bit softer than the other – so long as the two of you are united and use it to game the kid not let the kid use it to game you. For example “Ive explained to Daddy how much you want to stay up to watch that programme and he’s agreed you can BUT he says you’ve got to get to bed straight away once it’s finished.”

16

Parenting With Love and Logic. It’s the only parenting book I’ve found worth a gosh-darn, and I’ve read a LOT of parenting books! I like it because it teaches through love and natural consequences, through making kids - even little ones - responsible for themselves and their own actions, teaches them how to make choices and how to get their own butts out of trouble, and, if you really follow it, results in some awesome, independent, competent teenagers.

I’ve only read that one, which is a general one, but there are also age specific ones, including one for the early years.

17

Thanks guys. I love hearing about what has worked for you.

I guess my problem is knowing how much a two year old really gets from the discipline. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing a number of the things recommended above (choices and following through) but I feel like he is just too young for any of this to sink in at all.

I know that he “gets” things and remembers things, but how much discipline can be expected for a two year old?

18

Parenting With Love and Logic calls this stage (please don’t be offended, it’s meant with love…) “Basic German Shepherd.” Essentially, IIRC, a 2 year old should be able to do what a reasonably smart German Shepherd can. “Sit down and stay there,”…“Come here, please,”…“Give that to me, please,” and of course, the all important, “No!” :smiley:

“Stay” is somewhat limited in duration, of course, and how long a 2 year old will stay without reminder varies a whole lot. I’ve had some wiggleworms who were honestly trying really hard and made it a whole 30 seconds, and some quiet types who I’d almost forget were standing there 20 minutes later they were so good at it! But a minute per year of age (starting at 2, 1 year olds are a different story!) is a good guideline. If your 2 year old can’t stand where you tell her to for 2 minutes, then you need to do some retraining.

And it’s ESSENTIAL. Think about it - what do you do when your kid realizes you can’t really make him go to his room? You want that moment to be as late in childhood as possible, believe me. So instill Basic German Shepherd young so they don’t realize until they’re in middle-school that you can’t *really *make them do anything (short of violent means).

19

Moved Cafe Society --> IMHO.

20

Ours is two and a half. The biggie for us is this: state the consequence in advance. Then do it.

Basically, if we say ‘Stop banging that on the floor’ and she doesn’t stop and we take it away, she has a meltdown - because as far as she’s concerned, that landed on her out of nowhere. If we say ‘Stop banging that on the floor or I’ll take it away’ and she keeps banging and we take it away, no meltdown. Because she knew exactly what to expect - and she knows that her own actions caused the consequence, so she’s active in it rather than passive. If that makes sense.

And the vast majority of the time, she quits banging (or whatever) once she hears what the consequence will be. Because we always, always follow through on the consequence. (Which means never threatening one you’re not going to follow through on.)

Also, whining gets you nowhere. If she whines for something, even if it’s something I was going to say yes to anyway, she gets told ‘Leave the whine behind and ask again.’ When she asks in a normal voice, then I say yes.

At that age, they understand a lot. Really. Subtleties of context don’t sink in, but most stuff absolutely does.