What do you do AFTER they act out?

[physmom]

Ok, I get a lot with dealing with toddlers comes down to distractions, making sure they're fed and have slept etc.  However, what do you AFTER they've done something, broke something etc?  How do you make sure that they did was NOT OK  and that they can't do it again.  We're going to be staying with the in-laws for another week or two (we've been here a month already) and the place is not really child-proof and we have to respect their things (not something easy for DD)...

Anyways, we've had some problems with her throwing things and breaking things.  Today she was having a really great morning, actually, was just fed, had slept enough last night and seemed to be in a good mood.  Then I just had to poor my hot water into my cup to make coffee and apparently the two second that it took to do this was too long for DD and she dumped her water on the floor.  I told her "No" and was about to make her clean it up (I was just finishing pouring the water into the mug) and she threw her cup across the room and broke it into pieces!!! 

I was really shocked because I just couldn't see anything that warrented that behavior.  I talked to her about it and made it clear that was NOT acceptable but she definitely didn't get it.  She was just trying to play and was acting as happy as ever.  We've had a few other incidents like this lately of her throwing the phone, trying to take cables out of the wall etc.  I'm just at a loss on how to deal with this (especially on days today when she was in a good mood!!).  Growing up DH and I both would've just gotten spanked for it....

[pianojazzgirl]

It's tough to live in someone else's non-babyproofed space, isn't it?  Unfortunately I think all you can do is watch her very carefully (which it sounds like you have been), and do what babyproofing you can.  It seems like at the least dd is going to need to use only non-breakable cups and dishes for now.  

I think there are 2 issues at play here.  One is that you want to teach her that certain behaviour is unacceptable.  The other is that she is only just 2yo and hasn't developed much impulse control yet.  What you did - explaining (in simple terms) that it is not ok to <insert undesirable behaviour here> is perfect.  However, even if and when she totally understands that, what you cannot expect is that she'll have the impulse control to stop herself from doing <undesirable behaviour> each and every time.  Even if you punish/spank/whatever she still will only be just-2 and simply not yet at a developmental stage at which she has perfect impulse control.

Then I just had to poor my hot water into my cup to make coffee and apparently the two second that it took to do this was too long for DD and she dumped her water on the floor.  I told her "No" and was about to make her clean it up (I was just finishing pouring the water into the mug) and she threw her cup across the room and broke it into pieces!!!  bigeyes.gif
 

I was really shocked because I just couldn't see anything that warrented that behavior.

Look at this from a toddler's perspective: mama said "no", mama wasn't happy (she can hear it in your voice), toddler doesn't like that, toddler throws cup.  In other words she is expressing her emotions.  Of course it is not ok to express her anger or unhappiness by breaking stuff, so you need to a) do what you did and tell her that it is not ok behaviour, and (importantly!) b) start to teach her ways that it *is* ok to express those emotions.  Give her the words to express what she's feeling ("dd is mad!").  Start dialogues about emotions on a regular basis.  Point out characters in books and talk about what they might be feeling ("it looks like the puppy is mad", "that girl is happy because she has an icecream cone", etc, etc).  Give voice to her emotions whenever you can.  The goal is that (eventually) she will be able to verbalize her feelings and work problems out by talking.

But (back to my first paragraph) this is a long-term goal and will be a work-in-progress for years to come (with steps forward and steps backward), so for now you need to be aware that she is not "there" yet and continue to keep her and the people and things around her safe while you work on it.  Know that 2yos can be explosive.  Throwing things to show displeasure is normal (and to be expected).  Do your best to keep a close eye on her and put important or dangerous stuff out of her way.

[Greenlea]

My 2yo throws things like crazy too.  Yesterday we were getting ready to go and he threw a 2lb weight, merely missing his 3mth old brother.  My DH got very upset and was telling my DS not to throw weights in a very firm voice.  I explained he didn't know he was throwing a weight, he just throws things (he didn't want to get his coat on).  I then pointed out that maybe my DH shouldn't leave his work out stuff around.

My DS also tends to throw things when he knows he's gonna get in trouble if he has it.  Like he had a permanant marker, I started coming after him to get it out of his hands, and so he throws it.  Perhaps your daught thought she'd get in trouble for dumping the water, so she threw the cup.

[physmom]

Thanks piano for your response.  We actually talked to the in-laws today and decided to switch to all non-breakable plates/cups for the rest of the time we're here.  We've really tried to rearrange stuff here as best we can so DD can't destroy too much but some things can't be moved and they also have different rules that we normally don't have at our place (for instance, FIL got really upset when DD brought a sheet to play with into the living room where I could've cared less about that in our own apt). 

You're totally right about impulse control she doesn't seem to have much of it! We really do talk OFTEN about emotions.  She's really interested in what everybody is feeling at every moment and she can actually express when she's not happy, sad, scared etc.  However, she obviously doesn't always choose to speak when she's really upset (as seen this morning).  I guess I was just shocked because normally when she's in a mood where she wants to destroy things she's still in a bad mood afterwards.  However, this morning wasn't like that at all.  Instead she was a completely happy camper excluding the cup throwing incident.  DH suggested that possibly she did it more out of curiosity than out of anger.  That seems to make a bit more sense to me since she was in such a good mood afterwards. 

Oh, and another thing... she really loves it when we get angry.  She even makes her own "angry face" back at us and starts laughing hysterically so explaining that we're upset about something usually backfires. 

[physmom]

Greenlea- that's also a good point.  I never thought about her trying to get out of trouble, hmm...