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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[b] Explanations beyond “this is something you may not do” are pointless and make yourself feel like you’re accomplishing something but you aren’t.[/b] Toddlers are exhausting terrorists, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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).  [/quote]

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