Quote:
Originally Posted by rightkindofme  (If you start off saying no but then give in after 10 minutes of crying what your child has learned is that 10 minutes of crying means they can have their way.) It's just consistency consistency consistency. It's all you can do with a really little one.
|
Pretty much this. But I also try to offer my daughter another option or a behavior to replace the undesirable behavior, or I allow her to exercise her curiosity on a thing that is for her.
So it goes like this:
DD: uh uh uh ahhhh uh uh
Me: Oh, we don't climb onto the desk. We sit at the desk. See mama sitting in the chair at the desk? You can sit in the chair at the desk with me.
DD: uh uh uh aaaaaaaaahhh
Me: Ok, if you don't want to sit at the desk, you can play on the floor. Oh look, there is your truck! Wow, cool, truck! Oh, you want to sit at the desk? OK. But remember, we sit at the desk, we don't climb on to it.
Rinse and repeat.
Or
DD (furiously tearing books out of the bookshelf and yelling with delight)
Me: These books live in the shelf. Let's put them back in the shelf. No, we don't throw books on the floor. We put them away and wave. (Puts them away and waves in a ridiculous exaggerated fashion)
DD (starts trying to put the books in the shelf)
Me (gets all the books back on the shelf, waves)
DD (waves, waves, waves, stops trying to pull the books down)
Me: Do you want to dump all your books out of your bin and then put them away again?
So basically, I try to show her what I want her to do, explain what I don't want, and give her options that won't frustrate me but still allow her some freedoms. We made her little "baby cabinets" where she can have free reign, while other stuff is off limits. This has worked for my daughter, but there's a lot of repetition. She usually manages to control her urge to throw books now for at least a few moments. I can tell because she waves, waves, waves, then becomes overwhelmed with curiosity. But I have a moment to get to her when we are at the library or someone's house. If I do not allow her to do something, I try to be as consistent as possible so she doesn't get confused. So no throwing my books, no throwing the library's books, no throwing my neighbor's books, even if my neighbor says she doesn't mind.
Anyhow, if I have something absolutely deadline imperative, she gets to go in her cribby (which I drag out near me) with a few toys. For some reason, being enclosed helps her relax and focus.
I do think you can start setting boundaries for kids this young. You just have to expect you will be repeating yourself a lot, and dealing with a few tears. We started trying to teach DD about how we live as soon as she started crawling, but we really took off once she started picking up her first few signs around 10mo. Because then I knew she could copy me and understand me.
Edit: At this age children developmentally love to copy everything adults do and please them. So I try to use this to my advantage, even though, for instance. if she sees me typing she wants to try it too.
)
