Is it cruel to lock my toddler in a dark closet for a couple of minutes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:and before anyone comes at me for abuse - DS is extremely well loved and secure toddler. Our frustration is he is perhaps too confident and knows he can walk all over us. We do try replacement behavior, redirecting, the usual parenting suggestions, but often it does not work. Here's another example of something that happens nightly. DS starts banging on the table during mealtime or throwing food. We take away his plate.

DS: I want my food back!
DH: Why did dada take ita way?
DS: Because I hit the table
DH: Are you going to stop if I give it back to you?
DS: Yes.
We give it back. 2 minutes later destructive behavior returns.
DH: Dinner is over (takes away his plate, removes him from table)
DS: I want my food!
DH: Why did I take it away?
DS: Because I be mean.

*repeats*

Sounds like he found a fun and fascinating game to play with his dad at dinner time. Don’t engage! “I can’t let you bang your food.” Then take it away. He cries, give it back once. He does it again, meal time is over, his plate goes in the fridge and he leaves the table. Then finish your meal and ignore him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of what will work eventually (nothing is going to work overnight on a 2 year old), is sticking to the consequence with minimal emotion. If he rages, so be it. So, for the food thing, throwing food means he’s done. Communicate that ahead of time and just remove the plate. “You threw food, dinner is over”. He can try to negotiate, scream, whatever, but you’re done. He will survive with no meal. With my son, that first tantrum was horrific. The second one, a minute or so, and then…no more behavior. Bonus to the big tantrum is that they sleep well that night. Also, unless his room is no fun, if you’re trying to modify behavior, the chair should be somewhere with no distactions that you can see. General rule is a minute per year. If you feel you are about to lose it yourself, then put them in their room where they’re safe and take a break.

Even though your child is verbal, their brains aren’t really developed enough to do long term thinking and reasoning at this age. Explanations beyond “this is something you may not do” are pointless and make yourself feel like you’re accomplishing something but you aren’t. Toddlers are exhausting terrorists, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Precisely. OP, you are talking too much. Talking about it reinforces it, even if you think you are explaining to him why it is bad. He's not there -- he just likes being the focus of attention. That's normal for his age! But you feed into it.

Calm, limited emotion, clear, short communication. Natural consequences for misbehavior. Lots of redirection to head it off, and lots of praise when he is doing it right. THEN is when you have extended conversations.

[Anonymous]

If anyone did that in a public school for any reason they would be breaking the law. It used to be done regularly but not anymore. Get a grip OP and even more important, help your husband get a grip. You have a stubborn, smart and obstinate toddler, life is not going to get easier and you two need to learn how to cope. Get some help.

[Anonymous]

Debatable if it's cruel (depends on how he responds) but it's unlikely to work.

Now is when you level up your parenting to address behavioral issues.

[Anonymous]

Yes. That’s child abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You and he both need to read some books and/or take a class. A book like No Bad Kids can be read in one afternoon. Just do that to get going.

Most toddler misbehavior is attributable to either not having had enough physical activity or being hungry or tired, off schedule, etc.

is this really true?? if so I have a defective kid. Most days, barring interruptions to our daily routine, he is well-fed (healthy and well-balanced), very well exercised, well-slept (he sleeps 11 hours at night, 2 hour naps most days), and very well-engaged between preschool and home. But the misbehavior is constant.

Really constant? Or are you exaggerating? Constant misbehavior is not developmentally typical and there is probably an issue. But occasional misbeahvior sprinkled throughout the day is developmentally normal because they are still learning how to behave and do not have good impulse control. Your job is to correct, impose reasonable natural ckmseiquences for behavior and keep your cool.

Sure, not every minute we're around him. But every transition. Every time he has to get dressed or get a diaper change. Every meal time. Almost every time he's going in and out of car seats. Etc.

You really need to read some parenting books or take a PeP class. There are ways to deal with this — no magic bullets but things that will gradually help. The two biggest are warnings and choice. Eg—in 3 minutes, we will need to put down the toys and get dressed. In two minutes, we will need to get dressed. In one minute, we will need to get dressed. Okay. It’s just about time to get dressed — do you want the blue shirt or the red shirt today? Do you want to put Teddy on the bed or on leave him on the floor? (This won’t work exactly but that’s the idea. For them, each transition is surprising. And wildly disruptive to their internal life.

[Anonymous]

Yes, less abusive to smack him on the butt.

[Anonymous]

1, 2, 3 Magic, read it, implement it. It will change your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what will work eventually (nothing is going to work overnight on a 2 year old), is sticking to the consequence with minimal emotion. If he rages, so be it. So, for the food thing, throwing food means he’s done. Communicate that ahead of time and just remove the plate. “You threw food, dinner is over”. He can try to negotiate, scream, whatever, but you’re done. He will survive with no meal. With my son, that first tantrum was horrific. The second one, a minute or so, and then…no more behavior. Bonus to the big tantrum is that they sleep well that night. Also, unless his room is no fun, if you’re trying to modify behavior, the chair should be somewhere with no distactions that you can see. General rule is a minute per year. If you feel you are about to lose it yourself, then put them in their room where they’re safe and take a break.

Even though your child is verbal, their brains aren’t really developed enough to do long term thinking and reasoning at this age. Explanations beyond “this is something you may not do” are pointless and make yourself feel like you’re accomplishing something but you aren’t. Toddlers are exhausting terrorists, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Precisely. OP, you are talking too much. Talking about it reinforces it, even if you think you are explaining to him why it is bad. He's not there -- he just likes being the focus of attention. That's normal for his age! But you feed into it.

Calm, limited emotion, clear, short communication. Natural consequences for misbehavior. Lots of redirection to head it off, and lots of praise when he is doing it right. THEN is when you have extended conversations.

That’s a good point. He loves going back and forth with us on “why did dada/mama do …..”. We will try no more second chances even if he verbally apologizes and says he will not repeat bad behavior afain.

can someone tell me how this works when you’re not trying to stop bad behavior but need to get him to cooperate. Example: changing diaper, putting on clothes, getting into car seats. He runs away, cries, dawdles. The consequence can’t be disengage or ignore. Or even time out because we need to get him out the door or the diaper changed. He’s too strong to be physically forced to dress or lie down by me, when DH does it he hates it and cries but it’s apparently not enough of a deterrent because he still refuses to just cooperate.

[Anonymous]

Putting him in his room is not really a time out. It can be really helpful if a child is just disregulated and needs some alone time. It was really really useful with my extremely hyperactive son — once he was off track, nothing we did would get him back on it. But if left in his room for a while by himself, he would eventually calm down, get out a picture book or his little dinosaurs, and then rejoin us when he was calm.

A timeout should be really short. For a two year old, no more than two minutes. Someplace like the stairs or a corner, no talking, just sitting there for 2 minutes. They aren’t wildly helpful I think but do fill the need for “need a consequence for something where there’s no natural consequence”. It’s not at all helpful for non-compliance (eg refuses to put on his shoes). For non compliance, you really need a solution before you get to the refusal point …. Once it’s a battle of wills, you have two bad choices — give in and save your powder, or physically force it (which you probably need to do for things like car seats).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another parent interested in effective methods of discipline here. The usual suggestions don't work with every kids and I wish there were more parenting tips beyond the redirection, do not engage, positive encouragement etc. My parent friend group is mostly Americans who would balk at the idea of timeout, but when I have spent time around them and their children what I see is they basically put up with bad or at least very annoying behavior and let their toddlers/kids "walk all over them" like OP is describing. They don't seem happy about it, it's exhausting. But god forbid we talk about discipline and punishment.

I don’t believe you’ve read any of the books that get labeled “gentle parenting” because none of them say this. The library is full of books with discipline approaches but if I guess if you don’t read them and you just watch TikTok and read the paper you get to complain forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what will work eventually (nothing is going to work overnight on a 2 year old), is sticking to the consequence with minimal emotion. If he rages, so be it. So, for the food thing, throwing food means he’s done. Communicate that ahead of time and just remove the plate. “You threw food, dinner is over”. He can try to negotiate, scream, whatever, but you’re done. He will survive with no meal. With my son, that first tantrum was horrific. The second one, a minute or so, and then…no more behavior. Bonus to the big tantrum is that they sleep well that night. Also, unless his room is no fun, if you’re trying to modify behavior, the chair should be somewhere with no distactions that you can see. General rule is a minute per year. If you feel you are about to lose it yourself, then put them in their room where they’re safe and take a break.

Even though your child is verbal, their brains aren’t really developed enough to do long term thinking and reasoning at this age. Explanations beyond “this is something you may not do” are pointless and make yourself feel like you’re accomplishing something but you aren’t. Toddlers are exhausting terrorists, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Precisely. OP, you are talking too much. Talking about it reinforces it, even if you think you are explaining to him why it is bad. He's not there -- he just likes being the focus of attention. That's normal for his age! But you feed into it.

Calm, limited emotion, clear, short communication. Natural consequences for misbehavior. Lots of redirection to head it off, and lots of praise when he is doing it right. THEN is when you have extended conversations.

That’s a good point. He loves going back and forth with us on “why did dada/mama do …..”. We will try no more second chances even if he verbally apologizes and says he will not repeat bad behavior afain.

can someone tell me how this works when you’re not trying to stop bad behavior but need to get him to cooperate. Example: changing diaper, putting on clothes, getting into car seats. He runs away, cries, dawdles. The consequence can’t be disengage or ignore. Or even time out because we need to get him out the door or the diaper changed. He’s too strong to be physically forced to dress or lie down by me, when DH does it he hates it and cries but it’s apparently not enough of a deterrent because he still refuses to just cooperate.

And to add, apparently he cooperates just fine at school with things like clothes and diaper. So it’s just a power struggle with us.

[Anonymous]

Can i tie an everything bagel to my toddler's wrist and call it breakfast, lunch and dinner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what will work eventually (nothing is going to work overnight on a 2 year old), is sticking to the consequence with minimal emotion. If he rages, so be it. So, for the food thing, throwing food means he’s done. Communicate that ahead of time and just remove the plate. “You threw food, dinner is over”. He can try to negotiate, scream, whatever, but you’re done. He will survive with no meal. With my son, that first tantrum was horrific. The second one, a minute or so, and then…no more behavior. Bonus to the big tantrum is that they sleep well that night. Also, unless his room is no fun, if you’re trying to modify behavior, the chair should be somewhere with no distactions that you can see. General rule is a minute per year. If you feel you are about to lose it yourself, then put them in their room where they’re safe and take a break.

Even though your child is verbal, their brains aren’t really developed enough to do long term thinking and reasoning at this age. Explanations beyond “this is something you may not do” are pointless and make yourself feel like you’re accomplishing something but you aren’t. Toddlers are exhausting terrorists, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Precisely. OP, you are talking too much. Talking about it reinforces it, even if you think you are explaining to him why it is bad. He's not there -- he just likes being the focus of attention. That's normal for his age! But you feed into it.

Calm, limited emotion, clear, short communication. Natural consequences for misbehavior. Lots of redirection to head it off, and lots of praise when he is doing it right. THEN is when you have extended conversations.

That’s a good point. He loves going back and forth with us on “why did dada/mama do …..”. We will try no more second chances even if he verbally apologizes and says he will not repeat bad behavior afain.

can someone tell me how this works when you’re not trying to stop bad behavior but need to get him to cooperate. Example: changing diaper, putting on clothes, getting into car seats. He runs away, cries, dawdles. The consequence can’t be disengage or ignore. Or even time out because we need to get him out the door or the diaper changed. He’s too strong to be physically forced to dress or lie down by me, when DH does it he hates it and cries but it’s apparently not enough of a deterrent because he still refuses to just cooperate.

You need to solve the problem before it happens either by incentivizing the good behavior or by addressing the reason for the noncompliance. The reason for the noncompliance might be that he feels out of control, and it might be mitigated by finding ways to give him choices or control over the situation. (If he really hates having diaper changes, that might be a sign he’s ready for potty training.). Maybe if you let him pick shoes he really loves like light up super help shoes it would solve the shoe problem? Incentives are best when linked to natural consequences — if you get dressed quickly we will have time to play at the school playground for few minutes, or read a book before we leave, or play matchbox cars after breakfast, or whatever. If you front load the things he doesn’t like, instead of leaving them for the last minute, that gives you more leverage. Like he needs shoes on before breakfast and if he takes forever for that, you won’t have time to make him his favorite breakfast. Or whatever it is. Currently, the consequences of his dawdling are falling all on you (late to work or you skip breakfast or whatever).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can i tie an everything bagel to my toddler's wrist and call it breakfast, lunch and dinner?

I’m fine with this one. It is an everything bagel, after all. Just make sure the string is not so long that he could strangle himself with it and don’t let him go down the slide!