Discipline for Toddlers is a bit of an oxymoron. The truth is, you do not discipline toddlers. They are just too little. They do not understand time-outs, hand-slaps, spanks, scolding, corner time, loss of privileges, or any other form of discipline. That does not mean that you have to accept their inappropriate behavior! But there are ways to deal with it, ways that are not harmful to your child.
Time-Outs are Not Recommended for Toddlers
Infants and toddlers do not understand rules, cause and effect, obedience, or discipline. They do not intentionally act badly. Toddlers will act as toddlers do. It is only parents who interpret their behavior as bad. When the toddler was an infant and he needed something - some basic need was not being met - he cried and you took care of it. If he was hungry, you fed him. If he was wet, you changed him. If he was tired, you rocked him to sleep. Crying used to work! But now that he is a toddler, if he wants something and cries for it, you send him away! This can be devastating for the toddler, so much so that it is no longer a recommended form of discipline for day care centers or preschools.
When a toddler goes into a full-blown tantrum, sitting him on a naughty chair will accomplish nothing. He will not learn to calm himself down. He will not learn how to listen any better, or share his toys, or refrain from hitting or biting when he wants something. He will only learn that you pushed him away. Time-outs can create clingy, fearful, dependent children - the opposite effect of what good parenting tries to achieve. We want our children to be self-confident, out-going, independent thinkers, who will not easily succumb to peer pressure.
Model Appropriate Behavior for Your Toddler
Does this mean that parents are powerless to deal with tantrums? Absolutely not. But your best option is to try to prevent the tantrum in the first place. Toddlers exhibit challenging behavior for one of three reasons (Ryan):
- they have a need that needs to be met
- they are too young to understand or remember the rule
- they are stressed
The more you understand your toddler, the more you can correctly interpret his signals and meet his needs. At this point, you aren't "teaching" him to behave. You are modeling appropriate behavior. He learned to speak by listening to you speak. He learned to walk by watching you walk and trying to follow you. If you listen to him and respect him as a person, then he will learn to listen to you and respect you as a person, just like he learned everything else you've taught him so far.
Your toddler can be a very unsettling mirror of your own behaviors. If your child has volcanic mood swings, is it possible he also learned that from you? How do you react to someone cutting you off in heavy traffic? To waiting at a red light? To being put on hold on the telephone for a long time, then being disconnected? The more you can model patience, the more your child will demonstrate that as well.
Use Diversion for Preventing Inappropriate Behavior
If one child is playing with a toy, and you see your toddler focus on that toy, you just know that a temper tantrum will follow shortly. You have several options. Insist the other child share - which may make the other child have the tantrum, or teach your child he can always get what he wants. You can try to explain to your toddler that he must wait his turn - which he will not understand until he is older, and he will still have a tantrum. Or, you can divert your child to a different toy.
Head him off at the pass. Don't wait until the toy is an issue. Take your child's hand, and ask him if he'd like to look at books with you. Or invite him to play playdough with you. Or take him outside to the sandbox. Make the new option so much more interesting than the old toy someone else has, and he will go willingly and cheerfully. This is called diversion. Diversion works most of the time. It won't work if your child is acting out because one of his needs isn't being met, or he is experiencing stress.
Toddlers Misbehave When They Have an Unfulfilled Need
Besides their basic needs for food, water, shelter, rest, and affection, toddlers need to feel closeness, a sense of belonging. They need respect, exercise, stimulation, and learning. They need to experience the world through their five senses. The toddler loves to splash his bath water. This is a basic need to him. He is learning about water through splashing. He learns how it feels, how it tastes, how it makes droplets, how things change when they get wet. He watches the waves he can make. He observes how a large cup of water will spill over when he tries to pour it into a smaller cup.
This is basic toddler instinct. You can scold him and scold him until you are blue in the face that "bath water must stay in the bath tub. We do not splash bath water on the floor in this house!" and he will still fail to learn the rule. He is just too young! He needs to splash! Do not punish a toddler for splashing water on the floor. You can punish a five year old if this behavior is still present, but generally by then, the child has learned better.
If you do not want him splashing water on the floor, then stay right in the bathroom with him. When he starts to splash, you must turn him around to face the back of the tub, or pull the shower curtain, to contain the water. Drain some water out and don't fill the tub so full next time, or just spread more towels on the floor. So the next time your toddler misbehaves, ask yourself - is he expressing a need? Is he old enough to understand the rule? (The answer to that one is "no!" He will be old enough when he is older!) And finally, is he experiencing stress?
Toddlers Misbehave When They are Stressed
Many things can cause a toddler to be stressed. He is very easily stimulated. Everything is new - he is learning from his sense of sight, sound, scent, taste and touch all the time. So if you leave the television or radio on, or burn candles or use air fresheners, or have bright lights, bold wall colors, spicy foods, and rough textures, then your own home can be overstimulating! When you take him out shopping, he is being overstimulated. If you play the car radio, and talk to him, and he watches the neon signs pass through the window, he is over stimulated. That can all lead to a temper tantrum.
If you serve breakfast any time between 7 am and 9:30 am, and lunch any time between 11:30 am and 2:00 pm, and dinner sometime between 5:00pm and 10:00 pm, then your child is stressed. He may not be hungry when you serve him food, and he may very well be starving half an hour later. He may not be sleepy when you lay him down for nap, or he may be so over tired and over stimulated that he can't possibly get to sleep. Find ways to reduce stress in your life and in his, and you will have a happier toddler.
This does not mean that you should not take him out shopping! It's good for him to be out and about with you. But shopping in itself will be stressful. Only take him when he is not hungry, not sleepy, and not bursting with energy and would do better going to the park. Limit how much stress he experiences. And if you do take him in the store and he throws a tantrum, do not try to reason with him. Do not bargain with him, or put him in time out. Take him home! Take him out to the car and take him home. Find out if he needs food, water, rest, or some other need, and do your shopping later.
Establish Routine and Ritual to Encourage Good Behavior
To help eliminate inappropriate behavior, establish a routine to your day and stick to it. Try to serve three meals a day and one or two snacks at the same time every day. Do not grab foods in the fast food lane or the checkout aisle of the grocery store. Plan to be home, on time, to wash hands and sit at the table for a calm meal with your toddler. It is imperative that you sit with him and eat with him. You model behavior all the time. If you serve him apples and cheese and crackers, but you skip lunch or nibble on potato chips, he's going to grow up to eat just like you. What's more, he's likely to throw a tantrum over the lunch you fixed for him and refuse to eat it.
Have regular naps and bedtimes, every day. Don't let him skip a nap, or worse yet, nap in the car. Be home. Put him down in his crib (and don't transition him to a big bed until he is a big boy!). Make sure he's getting enough sleep. Toddlers require 13 - 14 hours of sleep each day (Brody). That is usually broken up into 11 hours at night and a two hour nap. Often a loud, disruptive child running around the living room in the evening is one that is over-tired and over-stimulated, not one who slept too long at nap time.
Toddlers are less prone to tantrums when they know what comes next. If you always take your toddler outside in the morning, then always go inside for lunch and a nap, he will be less prone to pitch a fit when it's time to go inside. He may fuss a little, but he knows that he will be back outside again later. If going outside is a rare occurrence, than there is probably nothing you can do to stop the inevitable tantrum.
Routines help the toddler to prepare for what comes next. If he always takes a bath after dinner, then puts on pajamas, hears a story, cuddles with you in the rocking chair before going to bed, then his body will be ready for bed by the time he gets there. He will fall asleep faster and is more likely to stay asleep.
Sources:
Ryan, Dr. Blaze M.D. and Ashley Olivia Ryan, "The Happy Child Guide" ParentLearningClub.com 2010. Accessed October 25, 2010.
Brody, Susan, "Toddler Sleep Solutions" Parents.com 2010. Accessed October 25, 2010.
Boyd, Keith M.D. and Kevin Osborn, "Punishment and Toddlers: What Doesn't Work" familyeducation.com. Accessed October 25, 2010.
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