BabyBites

Make them think it was THEIR idea to do something! Works on children, and on spouses

Giving positive attention for the good deeds, and positive attention to the other baby if my kid is misbehaving.

I stop whatever we are doing and look at my son VERY seriously (no smile etc). When I look straight into his eyes intently, he knows he did something wrong. Then he is left to ponder and usually stops misbehaving. Usually I smile at him, engaging him, etc. so when I give him THE STARE he knows something is not right.

I am a big fan of time out and then discussing what went wrong. It is very important to be consistent in what ever discipline technique you use. Once children realize that there is a consequence for doing somethings they are less likely to repeat it. I will also add that I try hard to avoid situations prior to having them happen. We all know our children and if I know ahead of time that a situation can arise then I talk about it prior to the situation or avoid it all together. This works for adults also. For example if I know my husband dislikes a friends husband and we are about to encounter them, I let him know ahead of time and then we can discuss how to deal with them.
Finally, I try to make the punishments go with the problem. For example if the child is teasing someone, while in timeout we will then come up with a list of positive things about that person. Then we write it down or go up to the person and incorporate the positive words in the apology. It forces them to be more positive and find the best out of everyone. That’s it-sorry for writing a book:-)

Consistency is the most important rule. Keep your patience:)))

Speaking to my daughter calmly seems to work best. We also use the word “relax” in a very calm manner which for some reason she seems to find amusing and her tantrum disappears. I also think patience is very important. They can feed from your anger and the situations becomes worse. We also encourage a lot of positive reinforcement.

I love the jedi mind trick – yes you want to give me the pitcher of water before you spill it…

but in the end Consistency is totally the key – along with distractions… usually I take the toy out of their hands while wife is starting a Yo Gabba Gabba show (he’ll forget in a second and run to the living room)

Positive attention for what I like to see as well as ignoring and occasional time outs. I also try to use a lot of positive terms such as being kind, respectful, etc so that my son can start learning that these are attributes that I want to see in him.

Discipline has been a challenge with our strong willed, spirited, non-listener who is now 2 1/2. What doesn’t work at all is saying “no” and/or getting upset. What has worked for us is giving alternative actions that he can do. For example “No jumping on the bed” worked when we said “You can jump on the bed if you hold on to the headboard or to Mommy”. He still needs to be reminded and I’m usually not crazy about the alternatives either, but at least I don’t have toworry as much about his safety. Another technique that works is telling him that if he stops doing something it will make Mommy very very happy, wheras telling him if he does something it will make mommy mad doesn’t work at all. So basically putting a positive spin on everything is our strategy. Time out is hard to do because he won’t stay seated in one place just because we ask him to, though we may start using it as he gets older and again with a positive spin.

We have found ‘time out’ really works. We put Benjamin (17 months) in his bed so he has to leave our company and he calms down talking to himself in bed. I think he actually likes it sometimes!

We recently started a “Good Behavior Sticker Chart” whereby if my 3 year old daughter has gone through the entire day without a tantrum we add a sticker to the chart. I’ve been amazed at how the tantrums have disappeared. If she’s starting to spin, I just remind her that there will be no sticker and she regularly calms herself down. The original intent was that after 7 stickers she’d get a special treat, but in reality the sticker themselves have been holding enough sway.

My son is 14-months old, and I haven’t disciplined him much aside from saying “no” firmly if he does something unacceptable, like pulling my hair or being too forceful with other babies. If he throws his spoon from his high chair, I explain to him “when you drop your spoon, then mommy has to clean it”. I walk away to the kitchen to quickly rinse his spoon. By depriving him of my attention for a few seconds, I hope he’ll learn that it’s not that much fun to throw his spoon on the floor. When he’s older, I plan on using Time-out.

We do time outs, but it doesn’t always work since she doesn’t really mind the time outs. Ignoring seems to work better.

Talk to your child. Children are a lot smarter than most adults give them credit for. Explain to them that their actions will have consequences.

Consistency! Positive reinforcement for good things – hand stamps, stickers, praise etc. TImeouts/ignoring for negative behavior. I think it’s so easy with parents’ busy schedules these days to forget to take time out of the day to just sit and play and interact with your children. I find that if I take time out of each hour to really focus on my kid then tantrums are kept to a minimum.

Saying ‘no’ only to important things so it doesn’t become an overused word. Ignoring bad behavior that’s designed to get attention and praising for positive behavior.

With any kind of discipline the key is consistency. For my three year old dd I use her Elmo chair as the naughty chair which I’ve placed in a corner. Whenever she acts up I give her a quick spank on the behind and place her on the Elmo chair for time-out and I turn the t.v. off or take away whatever she is playing with at the moment. Once the time-out is done I then explain it to her why she got spanked and time-out and let her know that there is a consequence when she misbehaves. But sometimes she tells me she is sorry before she is even done with her time-out. I also sometimes use the counting to 5 method and it works too again it depends on their actions. With my son its a little different he will be two next month and is not as advance as she was when she was his age I just have to look at him and he knows and also sit him down for a quick time-out.

Positive reinforement – remembering to mention the specific behaviors and actions that were good. On the flip side. discussing bad actions at the time. For both good and bad, bringing it up again later, for reinforcment. I think it will eventually sink in.

My friends and I have started counting to let the kids know its time to “share” the toy they have. Seems to be working, the kids are even counting with us!

I saw Michele Borba on Dr. Phil and she had a suggestion to decrease temper tantrums and bad behavior. Her theory is children are looking for attention whether positive or negative. She suggests when you see your child doing something good, whether playing by him/herself quietly or sharing with another child-praise him/her. I have been doing this and have found that the tantrum and negative behavior has decreased.
Also, when my daughter does something like hitting-I try not to just yell no. But rather say-hands are for eating, playing, hugging, but not for hitting.

Counting to 5 to get my 3.5 yr old to do something usually works

I use a lot of positive reinforcement all the time so when my son is acting out and I discipline him he knows something is wrong. I try to speak sternly to him and then turn the bad action into a positive one by showing him the correct or better behavior.

I have found that role playing with stuffed animals / dolls and toys works well for my 2 year old son. Usually before I know we are going to enter a difficult situation I play out the bad situation and then how I want the situation to be. For example, if my son has had a problem with a friend and hits them if he wants the toy instead of asking or sharing, I do that first and then show how it hurts the friend when he does that and then the next, “play” I show him how it’s nice when he shares or asks for a toy instead of hitting to get his way. Usually after one or two times of repeating the good behavior, he starts making the toys share instead of hit. This can work with any situation and I’ve seen a big improvement in his behavior, even though it’s not an on the spot discipline.

Positive reinforcement is generally our preferred method – Whenever our son does a behavior that we like, we always cheer or applaud him…He loves it and learns quickly that if he continues those actions that he will continue to get the same praise.

I have found that when my almost 3 year old’s behavior is out of control, or when she picks on her one and a half year old sister, I calmy put her in her crib until she (and sometimes I) calm down. When i take her out I smile and ask her and ast her not to ……. that is the end of it. Unless we do it all again…. until the behavior stops.

Positive reinforcement and consistency are key in my household! My son is 19 months old and I use time-outs for hitting and ignore him when he’s having a tantrum. These usually work well. I’ve also noticed that one on one moments throughout the day keep tantrums away.

say things only twice. tell them on the 2nd time you won’t say it a 3rd time.

Always praising good actions and giving choices (i.e., either we wash your hair now or we don’t go out later today to the park or either daddy washes your hair or mommy washes your hair) works the most effectively for us!

Slightly embarrassing, but bribery seems to be the key these days. We like to think of it as more of an early allowance. My husband wanted to teach our almost 3 year old about money, so he started talking about his “job” Mommy’s “job” and her “job” and how when you do your job, you earn money. So, when she goes to bed nicely without a fight, etc…. she gets a dollar. Not to just pay her for everything, she also pitches in to pay for her meals at restaurants.. usually one dollar. She has gotten to the point of offering Daddy a dollar after her meal without even being asked. The problem…. when I forget her wallet!

My LO is still very young o just consistency, redirection, and firm “no’s”

I am a strong believer in positive discipline. When my son throws a tantrum I will ignore it until he starts to calm down, and then approach and commend him when he is able to self soothe. It helps to catch them when they are doing something positive and acknowledge the behavior, rather then giving negative attention everytime they do something wrong.

I have a 10 month old so there’s not much disciplining we can do. We try not to make a fuss over bad behavior and positive reinforcement on good behavior. That’s how I trained my puppy! Loud “NO”s will get you NOwhere.

giving positive discipline / reinforcement – and CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES – “if you want to do B, first you need to do A”. Pick two things that need to be done that i know he does not want to do – and give a choice between both.

Our son normally does not throw a large tantrum, but will act out when he is looking for extra attention (he has younger twin siblings). Counting to 3 does the trick with him and he generally calms down. But I always make sure to give positive reinforcement when he does something great and helps out with his brother and sister.

We definitely use positive reinforcement whenever we can, but we have a problem with our 2 year old not listening to us. So when we consistently ask him to do something (or not do something) and he doesn’t listen, we have found that time outs are a good solution. We put him in the “naughty spot” for 2 minutes, and rarely have repeat behavior!

Saying “no” like you mean it and only when necessary. Consistently rewarding for positive behavior.

My 2 year old son has been running up to his friends and either pushing or hugging them! You never know which he is going to do. I try to intervene before contact by reinforcing “You don’t push your friends” or “Please ask your friends if they want a hug first.” If he doesn’t listen I remove him from the situation, make him look me in the eye and tell him again until he says he understands (as much as that’s possible I suppose). I then ask him to apologize to the child he touched. It seems to work 1/2 the time, and the other 1/2 I threaten to take him home, but honestly haven’t followed through yet. My pediatrician told me that I have to follow through to get the fastest results so I’m going to try that next. I’m also attending a Toddler Discipline seminar next week that I hope will shed some light on this problem. Good luck everyone!

I make a pouty face and tell my 2 1/2 year old son “I’m very sad that you are not listening to Mommy.” He usually takes a minute to consider, then gives me a big hug and says “I listening Mommy… you happy now?” What can I say, Jewish guilt works!

we make sure that our child has settled down enough to listen well while we explain the rules and consequences. if he begins to do something he against the rules, we say- honey, there will be consequences if you do that. it sounds so ominous that he has yet to find out what it really means- works every time. so far.

Praising good behavior is so important. Only using the word “no” often backfires when there isn’t postive reinforcement. Our child often wants to do the right thing because she knows mommy and daddy will be pleased with her and do the “good girl dance” when she behaves and is kind to others. Of course, nothing is 100%. A toddler is a toddler!

another one here advocating the postitive reinforcement whenever you can (although it sometimes seems like that’s not working when they do misbehave!) and consistency with rules and boundaries. Since the toddler stage is full of testing and getting attention for good and bad (sometimes my mischievous monkey seems to prefer the cross mummy attention to the happy one!) behavior, we try to redirect behavior and give choices: mummy told you to stop jumping on the couch because it’s dangerous and you might hurt yourself. Please stop. If no go, I try the distraction – I think it would be fun to read a book/play with this toy with mummy instead. and If that doesn’t work, go to : I won’t tell you again, if you don’t stop now, you will go to bed early, not get to go out, go to time out etc. Then FOLLOW THROUGH! If they see you cave, they will remember that! They have strong wills and don’t care about getting to that appointment on time like you do!!!

I agree with all the comments on praising good behavior and redirecting. We try to head the tantrum off by providing choices, but if we aren’t successful we redirect and talk about what happened after my son has calmed down. I’ve tried using time-outs, but I have a hard time doing it with a straight face when he gets very melodramatic. I find it works better for me to get him away from the situation and talk about what happened.

I am finally having some success with the aggression thing- while saying No wasn’t working, if I frame it posiively saying “show me gentle,” she usually responds by gently pettng whomever she’d intended to bite, hit, etc. When she finishes, she says “nice.” Meaning, “I’m being nice!!” and I give her positive reinforcement for that.

I give him clear consequences for his behavior. For instance if my son refuses to put his jacket on, then we don’t go to the park. If he does not eat his vegetables, he does not get dessert. The consequences occur right after the behavior so he is able to connect the two and they are reasonable and understandable. If he chooses to eat his vegetables at a later time, he does get dessert. I also give him choices as much as possible. If he does not want to go to bed, I let him choose how many books to read or whether he should brush his teeth or put on pajamas first. This way he feels like he has some control.

we definitely utilize ‘time outs’ if need be. they say that you do it for 1 minute per year of age. when i go in to address the situation after he has sat there, i always ask him ‘why do you think you had a time out?’ and he usually has an answer and we discuss what he could’ve done to avoid the time out. we also make him apologize whoever it was that was offended (99% of the time, it’s his little brother). i always finish by telling him that i love him, i just don’t like that behavior.

Definitely time outs for us … they cool down, I cool down too sometimes , and we discuss what went wrong and what other choices he could make next time.

Never raise your voice. Make them think it is their idea to do something.