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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]

Your discipline book of choice is going to cover this. 123 magic will be a little different than parenting with love and logic.

Getting dressed and out the door is hard for everyone. My top moves as a “logical consequences” person are:

1) try to have extra time as much as possible. Being in a rush is a position of weakness. It will happen, but try to minimize it especially while you’re trying to get things on track behavior-wise.

2) absolutely do not engage in any negotiation or pleading about getting dressed. Ever. If I have extra time, I might say “I’m going to go make your lunch and come back when you’re ready to get dressed” if that is true. Or I might say “I’m here to help you get dressed now, but I will not help you after one minute.”

then you just put them in the car in their Jammies or whatever. That’s the natural consequence. Being late to whatever it is because they have to change in the car, or having to walk into school in their Jammies and change in the bathroom. Unless that pleases them.

If it pleases them, I might go to needing more time so getting up earlier, or skipping a fun part of the morning, to get more “chances” to get dressed where you offer it and if they refuse, you go do something else not involving them.

Whatever you do it’s probably going to suck a few times. [/quote]

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