Toddler Discipline

Here's a couple of articles that I thought were good regarding toddlers:

Discipline for Toddlers

This next one is a great list of ideas. Some of them I've already tried, but I got some new ideas from reading this.

Ideas for Toddlers

I like the idea of teaching a toddler how to "touch" with just an index finger. I thought that was a great strategy. Usually Boo is allowed to touch and grab or not at all, but teaching him how to lightly touch with an index finger would help him to satisfy curiosity without putting whatever breakable object at risk. I'm thinking of his Grandma and Papa's house here. Talk about breakables everywhere. Good grief! :)

#7 in the touch category was also great. I'm great at saying "That's not for Boo", but not great with the follow-up of showing him what he can have. Sometimes I do, but I'm not nearly as consistent and good at that as I could be. Honestly, a lot of the time it's out of sheer laziness! Sometimes I don't want to get off the couch and find him something that he can have. Granted, this is not usually at home. Since I do home daycare, pretty much everything within reach in the downstairs of our home is for him. But this happens more when we're out and about, at relatives, in the community, etc...

#1 in the stopping activity section has worked well for me. When we go to the park Boo says "bye bye" to the park, the swings, etc...I use this pretty much every time we leave somewhere that he's been enjoying himself. So far it's worked really well. Of course I'm probably jinxing it now.

#5 in that same category is a good one. For example, when I tell Boo and my daycare kiddo to "clean up toys", they'll sometimes sit and look at me and continue playing. I usually get much better cooperation when it's "Let's clean up so we can go outside, eat lunch, fill in the blank." Granted, this doesn't always work. And there's not always something that will be rewarding to them afterwards. Sometimes we clean up just to clean up and we're not going anywhere or eating anything. The clean up song helps, but even that's not guaranteed. I've found sometimes I have to physically hold their hands, use hand over hand to help them pick up a toy and put it in a basket. Then, with that level of help, they'll often jump in and pick up. And then sometimes, I get no help at all and I just model picking up the toys while they play. With an older child, of course I would be comfortable with some sort of logical consequence for not picking up toys, but with toddlers I'm comfortable just modeling the appropriate behavior for now.

Anyways, I won't go on and on, but I thought the article had a lot of neat ideas. I'm definitely going to try some of them that I haven't tried yet.

I plan to write a blog entry on natural/logical consequences and how it is different from permissive parenting. However, my brain is feeling too tired for that right now. I want to do the topic justice. So in the meantime enjoy these additional links.