Discipline 2 year old

[Anonymous]

Do they understand the concept of repurcussions? Even if it’s not right away?

[Anonymous]

My DC has a great memory, but I still wonder. When I say, if you do or do not do X, then Y will happen. She acts like she understands. Then after multiple warnings Y happens. She will then say, I do X, I do X, after Y happened. She remembers what happened yesterday, but still does X today. Sometimes she will scramble to do X so that Y does not happen. So basically OP, I have no idea!

[Anonymous]

No.

[Anonymous]

They somewhat have the concept of repercussions, but if there's a time lag you can't expect it to shape their decision making. Their brains aren't there yet - you can't say "if you do that you have to stay home when we all go play at the park tomorrow" and expect it to make them behave differently now or reinforce anything about today's behavior when you fight about the park tomorrow.

Time ins, redirection, and separate them from the situation.

[Anonymous]

No.

Their little minds aren't hatd-wired yet to be forward thinkers or anticipate consequences and repercussions and won't be for several years.

It's never crossed your mind the reason for example, why your kid sits in a car seat...b/c your mature brain undetstands and can anticipate what happens if you don't.

[Anonymous]

At 2 mine knew if she was bad or wasn’t listening she had to sit on the step to cool down. And that if she pooped in the potty it meant she got M&Ms.

[Anonymous]

I think they can sometimes understand immediate consequences (like getting a reward for potty trainings, as PP mentioned). But you have to be incredibly specific and consistent for them to get this. It has to be linked to something very specific and the consequence must be applied the same every time. So stuff like giving a 2 year old a time out for smashing his sister's block tower is really hard to make work unless you are super consistent about the time out for every time he interferes with his sister's playing in an aggressive way. And even then, since the behavior might be slightly different each time, it can just be hard for them to put two and two together. They are very literal at this age but also have limited cognition, and that leads to a lot of misunderstandings.

That's why it's usually better to just really praise and reward positive behaviors and, to the extent possible, ignore negative ones that this age. We basically never punished my DD at this age beyond natural consequences ("oops, you through your dessert on the floor on purpose, I guess you are done with dessert!"). But we praised and rewarded her constantly for stuff like sharing, asking nicely, being patient while we did grown up stuff, listening the first time we asked for something, following our getting ready schedule, etc. It's easier to praise and reward once you are in the habit, and they respond really well to it because they are extremely eager to please at this age and love getting parental attention. So you basically train them to love positive attention from you and to want to do the stuff that gets it.

We still basically do this at 3 and it continues to work well. But at this point we do sometimes do small disciplinary actions because the behaviors are much more challenging. We do small time outs for rude or unkind behavior, and then follow up with a check in where we talk it through. At this point she will put herself in time out, actually, and then say "I needed to cool off!"

Corporal punishment is morally wrong and does not work. It just teaches them to fear you, to conceal their mistakes, and that violence can be justified.

[Anonymous]

Just give us the situation Op.

[Anonymous]

They don’t have impulse control. So they aren’t choosing to hit their friend over a toy in the sense that an older kid would - it’s a reaction.

Consequences only work for a kid who is weighing his choice and you are helping make one choice particularly uninviting.

[jsmith123]

I believe they do understand. But they lack the ability to control their impulses.

This is where discipline comes in, but in the sense of discipline as "teaching", versus discipline as punishment.

Example: You need to teach your child that she cannot throw sand at the park. The first time she does it, you hold her hand and gently say: "You cannot throw sand at the park".

Your 2 year old understands this completely. And now it's her job to see if you mean it.

So she throws more sand. And you calmly say: "Uh oh, it's not okay to throw sand at the park. We need to leave now."

And then you leave. Your DD may cry, pout, tantrum, promise to do better with another try etc, and you shouldn't listen to any of it. You should take her home.

You teach her there are rules. You teach her they apply to her. You teach her that you mean what you say. And you do it in the spirit of being gentle and helping her learn, not in the spirit of anger and punishment.

[Anonymous]

jsmith123 wrote:I believe they do understand. But they lack the ability to control their impulses.

This is where discipline comes in, but in the sense of discipline as "teaching", versus discipline as punishment.

Example: You need to teach your child that she cannot throw sand at the park. The first time she does it, you hold her hand and gently say: "You cannot throw sand at the park".

Your 2 year old understands this completely. And now it's her job to see if you mean it.

So she throws more sand. And you calmly say: "Uh oh, it's not okay to throw sand at the park. We need to leave now."

And then you leave. Your DD may cry, pout, tantrum, promise to do better with another try etc, and you shouldn't listen to any of it. You should take her home.

You teach her there are rules. You teach her they apply to her. You teach her that you mean what you say. And you do it in the spirit of being gentle and helping her learn, not in the spirit of anger and punishment.

My 2 yo would definitely not understand that we were leaving the park because of the sand throwing.

[Anonymous]

No. Parent-imposed discipline does not work on 2 year olds, 12 year olds, or 22 year olds... I wish I had known this sooner. Truly, it’s a waste of energy and only creates unhealthy power dynamics. Let kids reap the natural/inherent consequences of their actions. Do what you reasonably can to adjust the kid’s environment to avoid obvious pitfalls (i.e removing the ginormous toy bin full of tiny pieces they can scatter everywhere and never clean up no matter how sternly you ask). Stay calm and present until they are calm again. The end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsmith123 wrote:I believe they do understand. But they lack the ability to control their impulses.

This is where discipline comes in, but in the sense of discipline as "teaching", versus discipline as punishment.

Example: You need to teach your child that she cannot throw sand at the park. The first time she does it, you hold her hand and gently say: "You cannot throw sand at the park".

Your 2 year old understands this completely. And now it's her job to see if you mean it.

So she throws more sand. And you calmly say: "Uh oh, it's not okay to throw sand at the park. We need to leave now."

And then you leave. Your DD may cry, pout, tantrum, promise to do better with another try etc, and you shouldn't listen to any of it. You should take her home.

You teach her there are rules. You teach her they apply to her. You teach her that you mean what you say. And you do it in the spirit of being gentle and helping her learn, not in the spirit of anger and punishment.

My 2 yo would definitely not understand that we were leaving the park because of the sand throwing.

This is a great example of natural/inherent consequences though. The child is acting unsafely or doing something that could negatively impact the wellbeing of others present. The patent has a responsibility to mitigate. Removing the child from the environment is appropriate. It’s not discipline; removing the child doesn’t need to be done with an accompanying “I told you so... “ lecture. Eventually the child will become old enough to make the association that behaving safely/appropriately means they get to stay at the park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsmith123 wrote:I believe they do understand. But they lack the ability to control their impulses.

This is where discipline comes in, but in the sense of discipline as "teaching", versus discipline as punishment.

Example: You need to teach your child that she cannot throw sand at the park. The first time she does it, you hold her hand and gently say: "You cannot throw sand at the park".

Your 2 year old understands this completely. And now it's her job to see if you mean it.

So she throws more sand. And you calmly say: "Uh oh, it's not okay to throw sand at the park. We need to leave now."

And then you leave. Your DD may cry, pout, tantrum, promise to do better with another try etc, and you shouldn't listen to any of it. You should take her home.

You teach her there are rules. You teach her they apply to her. You teach her that you mean what you say. And you do it in the spirit of being gentle and helping her learn, not in the spirit of anger and punishment.

My 2 yo would definitely not understand that we were leaving the park because of the sand throwing.

This is a great example of natural/inherent consequences though. The child is acting unsafely or doing something that could negatively impact the wellbeing of others present. The patent has a responsibility to mitigate. Removing the child from the environment is appropriate. It’s not discipline; removing the child doesn’t need to be done with an accompanying “I told you so... “ lecture. Eventually the child will become old enough to make the association that behaving safely/appropriately means they get to stay at the park.

Sure, stopping them is one thing or removing them from the sand. But leaving the park altogether would mean my 2 yo, who desperately needs exercise, would never get to spend more than 2-3 minutes at the park (because within 2-3 minutes he will throw sand/wood chips/run away from me/grab another kids toy/screech loudly/etc).

[Anonymous]

I did instant time out at that age. Sit on the floor and don’t move for 2 minutes. Once she sat down in Giant in timeout cos she was losing her shit I’ve not getting something. She sat there, did her time, I carried on with my shopping.