How would you punish a toddler for throwing a remote and breaking a new $5,000 television?
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Anonymous
| DS is three years old. Today he threw the TV remote at the new TV while my husband was installing it. It left a permanent mark in the middle of the screen. We MIGHT get relief because of the credit card my husband used to buy it but won't know until submitting a claim. |
Anonymous
| This is the kid that breaks laptops, right? |
Anonymous
| I'd punish the same as any remote throwing, the cost of the TV is immaterial (except that it's stupid to pay that much for a TV ever much less with a toddler in the house) |
Anonymous
|
Take the amount of money the damage caused out of the equation - 3 yr olds have no concept of money.
Work with him on managing his anger in appropriate ways. It's not so much about punishing, but teaching. |
Anonymous
|
My then 3-year-old punched the tv creating a dead spot that grew until we bought a new tv a few months later. We put her in time out right away because we had been working on not hitting and she understood that concept. But there’s no way a toddler understands delayed consequences like paying for a tv.
Work on impulse control and not throwing things in the house. Set your kid up for success by keeping things that can be broken out of their way or protecting valuables. (We put a baby gate around the tv so the kids couldn’t get close to it or the remote, game players, streaming boxes,etc.) Direct any anger or frustration away from your child. They just don’t understand. |
Anonymous
| There is such thing as a 5K TV? |
Anonymous
| Might be a sign your household is too focused on tv |
Anonymous
| Nothing. He has no idea what he did. |
Anonymous
| He’s too young. He will hardly remember it tomorrow. He will remember anger and frustration and shame if you punish him severely. It’s very frustrating and if he needs to have help managing himself, then that’s what you focus on going forward. |
Anonymous
|
The same way I would consequence any other throwing objects in the house.
If that’s a brief time out, I would do that. If it’s telling him no and redirecting, then that. But any consequence at that age would need to happen within about 10 minutes to be effective, so if you are asking now then no further consequence. And then if they asked to watch TV while it is being fixed, I would say sadly “We can’t watch TV, the TV is broken”. |
Anonymous
| I’d make his parents take a time out and think about what they did to allow things to align so that this could happen. |
Anonymous
| Was it like that when you opened the box? |
Anonymous
|
My 4yr old broke our only TV. The consequence was that we didn’t replace it and he had no iPad or other screens for over a month. We left the broken TV in the living room and when he would ask for cartoons, we would point at the broken TV and say “no shows. The TV has a boo-boo from when you hit it”.
Eventually he was allowed to have an iPad again but if he isn’t gentle with it, he loses any iPad time for 48 hours. |
Anonymous
woof that's mean |
Anonymous
No, at 4, this is entire appropriate. At 3, it probably won’t work as well. |