When can you start "disciplining"?
Our son is 13 months old, and he's starting to understand a lot (well, relative to before). He's also started to push boundaries. We firmly told him not to do specific things (e.g., grabbinh the trunk of our plants and shaking it). And we know he understands - mainly because he'll look at us just before doing something forbidden, and then he'll try it anyway.
Then there are other things that we're not sure how hard to push. For example, throwing toys. He likes to throw balls, but we don't like him to throw other larger, plastic toys. Is it really realistic for him to understand that some things are ok for throwing/kicking and others are for pushing buttons?
So I guess my main question is.... In drawing the line between allowing him to explore and setting boundaries, when and how do you start disciplining?
2 Answers
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Start now. :-) If what he's exploring isn't dangerous or something that you'd rather not see destroyed, I'd let him continue to explore (supervised, of course). The more you say 'no,' the more tempting an item becomes. Let him see what it is and it's possible that the novelty will wear off. Also, realize that the activity of throwing may not be intentional.
For specifics, we've had success with our son (almost 1yr) and stopping the throwing of books. He would pick up a book and throw it to the closest adult so they can read it to him. My husband and I take the book and place it on the ground next to him saying, "no, we don't throw books. can you hand it to me?" If he throws it again, we put it down again. When he hands it to us, we read it to him.
Throwing of toys - give the toy back but reinforce that you don't like him throwing toys. If he throws it again, take it away. If you let him throw a ball and he's throwing a different toy, take the toy away and replace it with one he can throw.
Electronics - we don't want our son touching the TiVo or the DVD player but we also don't want to lock them away. When he touches something that's not a toy, we say "no touching, only looking." If he doesn't pull back his hand, we guide his hand away from the object. He's heard those words so much now that he may still approach an object but, if we say NTOL, he leaves it alone more times than not.
In our house, stopping the throwing of food is still a work in progress.
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As soon as he's old enough to disobey - like, not crawl to you when you tell him to - it's time to teach. He understands even better than you think he does. Shower praise when you catch him doing something good, so that he fully understand the difference between good and bad.
I've also found it helpful to consider if it's a 'heart' issue, or pure childishness. If my 1-yr old pushes his big sister because he wants to get her attention and play, he's being childish and a little too rough. A firm no and showing him a gentle touch would do the trick. If he pushes her because she's playing with his toy, that's malicious and intentional, meaning he'd end up in time out for that.
Great question! See also today's related blog post - Growing Child: Remember, we've talked about this.
- andrea, Apr 9, 2010