Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 2 year old Driving me Bonkers!

I like to reserve the most severe punishment for the important issues. For examle, crossing the road without looking, running too far away from the parent, violence against others. Also, some children do not respond to punishment if it happens too long after the undesired behavior. When I say too long, I mean even more than 3 seconds after the behavior begins may be too long.

If the child is reacting worse after a punishment, then they are likely not connecting the punishment to their own behavior. In the case of a 2 year old I was dealing with, spanking would have no effect after 5 seconds and resulted in an escalation of bad behavior. Meanwhile, just a light poke on the shoulder 2 seconds after the start of the behavior stopped it. Rather than try to fight back, the child had the what have I done look.

The staying in bed issue is a tough one. I have had a lot of struggles with this one myself. In my case, the problem went away after I moved. I think my DD was scared of something in the old place. The running off issue is not something I have had to deal with, but the not looking before crossing the road has been a continuous work in progress. Four years and counting. I won't stop working at it until my currently DD6 gets it right.

Two year olds often can't understand the consequences of their actions. Even if they can understand that doesn't mean they have the impulse control to stop.

I know it is exhausting but the reality is that two year olds, especially intense ones, require constant supervision. You can also lower your stress by doing what you can to alter the environment (locks high up on doors, putting some breakables away into storage for a while.) Some errands may need to be let go or reserved for time without the child. These are temporary changes and there is no reason to try to force the child to learn the lesson right now. He will get it when he's ready and in the meantime you can make life easier for everyone by taking some steps to change the environment.

I would also encourage you to plan ahead to find ways to keep your child engaged and set him up for success. Providing appropriate approved outlets for sensory play may help him meet that need without getting into flour, etc. Sensory play can include - water in the bathtub, a rubbermaid container filled with beans and toys like matchbox cars, playdough and clay, and the sandbox. Many two year olds enjoy a bucket of water, a paintbrush and some sidewalk. The sprinkler also saved our sanity around that age. Limited choices may also be helpful if your child is very verbal. Give two choices that are okay with you - "do you want to hold my hand or my purse", "while we wait do you want to hop up and down or sing a song?" etc.

It is good you've realized spanking doesn't work. I would encourage you right now to make the decision to never spank again. It doesn't work. The Natural Child Project has several good short articles that might help give you some good ideas. http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/22_alternatives.html
http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/tenreasons.html

Yes to this and to the previous poster who noted "Feeling your pain."

Supernanny-style methods do work.

The bad news is that it apparently only lasts until adolescence, and then you get horrible, PTSD style flashbacks to these years... just without the little-one sweetness in between the hair-rasing adventures. You could consider this a preview, if you will. LOL!

One thing that I found worked VERY well with my DD at this age was a three step approach to problems with her:

a) calm her down when she's freaking out/out of control-- find a low-sensory place that you can PLACE your child for "calm down" time. Then leave them there when they need it-- whether that is so that they can stop a massive tantrum, or so that you can clear away the havoc, either way...

b) talk it over-- express disappointment with actions/choices... try to get the CHILD to suggest ways of improving his/her control over himself/herself so that it doesn't happen again. (Keep this simple and age appropriate, btw-- that is why I suggest letting the child take the lead there-- but gifties will surprise sometimes in their sophistication.)

c) compromise where you CAN. (and hey, with basic safety, there isn't a compromise. So be it.)

Oh-- and one more thing. While we are not parents that are necessarily putting any "tool" off the table (physical punishment included), there comes a time when one must decide whether one's goal as a parent is punishment, or is it discipline?

There is a major difference between those two things. One of them is about control and an imbalance of power-- the other is about love and training.

Kids know the difference. If you feel yourself sliding toward punishment (and wow, can intense kids ever PUSH you there) then I find that it is time for ME to take a little "time out" to regroup and rethink my big picture.

I'm not trying to "win" disagreements with my child. I'm trying to train her to be a healthy human being. BIG difference. Punitive measures are not as effective for the latter, just in general.

Here's another vote for the Nurtured Heart approach. In our experience it works best if you go the whole hog-- implementing the point system and everything-- instead of just skimming it for words of gentle wisdom and trying to cut down on the contentiousness. The book itself (the original, not the workbook that we don't have) is a little too new-age for our tastes, and wastes a lot of pages restating things, but the methods do work whether you agree with all the ideas or not.

Another book I can recommend in a similar vein is "Beyond Time-Out: From Chaos to Calm", by Beth A. Grosshans and Janet H. Burton. It has ideas on how to remedy power imbalances within the family, which I suspect are more likely to happen with gifted kids, and why they occur, which may be enlightening even if you just go with the Nurtured Heart training methods.

I liked the last few posts. The word punishment is to strong a word. I consider my approach to be a combination of communication and consequence. Some young children do not respond to verbal communication, so I use physical communication. Think of the physical communication as steering the child's behavior. It does not have to be punishment.

If your struggling with verbal communication, then focus on only one word. The word I focus on is stop. This is the only word I expect my DD to respond to instantly. When she started to respond to the word stop, I then began teaching her to use it. I said I will tickle you until you say stop.

I like to think of the physical method of communication like steering a car. Steer to much and you end up in the ditch. Use increasely physical cues to deal with increasingly intense behavior. Think of this as communication.

In my case, I try as much as possible to be proactive. I practiced my reactions before the behavior even started. Once it started, I then practiced it with the child in calm times. Then I repeated the reaction during the behavior. I like to think of it like a fire drill. Learn to be calm before the real fire happens.

When a child does not listen to a request by me, then the next request the child makes of me is not responded to. Just some of what I try. Does not always work out the first time or the next hundred, but I keep trying. Just some thoughts.

The first thing I think you need to remember that no matter how smart he is, you're smarter AND wiser. And you have better impulse control than he does. You also have less frustration because you have control over almost everything in your life.

If he's advanced then you have an advantage over other parents in that he will understand you talking to him.

My 2 year old tried to be a runner. What I did was institute a strict rule that he must be holding my hand at all times if he was walking. If he wouldn't hold my hand, he would be carried or be put in the shopping cart or stroller. If I couldn't physically keep him in the shopping cart or my arms we would go straight to the car. Depending on how much he wanted to be out or at home I would either go home, or wait it out in the car.

I still have locks on our doors at home. I can't imagine allowing a two year old to have the option to walk out of the house. Same with letting him have access to his sibling's artworks and bags of flour. If you child-proof your house a lot of the issues will simply disappear.

I think all spanking him teaches him is that it's OK to hit people. It doesn't teach them internal self discipline and once they're bigger than you you'll be SOL for discipline. We prefer to use the far more manipulative and tailored method of natural consequences. For every problem you can't head off in advance, there is a logical consequence. Like, if you can't hold hands and stay near mom, you can't walk. If you smear your food all over the kitchen, then it's not edible and you'll be hungry by the next mealtime. If you don't wear a coat, you get cold.

If he's really into painting things he shouldn't, try and create opportunities for him to paint with interesting textures. Shaving cream or pudding in the bathtub is fun.

When he won't stay in bed you need to make coming out of bed really unrewarding. I have turned off all the lights in the house to make it boring for my kids. You probably will be able to just wordlessly and calmly take him back to bed and put him in, as many times as it takes. He'll fall asleep eventually, and with no interesting reward of mom losing it and shouting and hitting it won't be nearly as fun.

Then, I'd look at why he's not falling asleep. Is he not tired yet, or overtired? Is his pre-bed routine long enough or too long? Is his circadian rhythm off? Is he having TV in the evening that's waking him up? Is he too hungry by bedtime because dinner is early, or is dinner too late and he's overhungry and can't eat? Is he ready to drop a nap or should he still be napping? Is his nap too early or too late in the day?

It's true that often a two or three year olds can often only communicate their feelings using their teeth or their hands, but as adults we have a lot more tools at our disposal and violence is counterproductive. The worst thing one of my kids can do is hurt another person, so we reserve the worst consequence for it, as I imagine you do. Saying "don't hit!" followed closely by *BAM* is a hell of a confusing message for anyone, let alone a child.

I agree with Tallulah wholeheartedly.

My dad always tells me that it�s my fault that DS2 gets into things he shouldn�t be. A 2yo doesn�t understand it�s not OK to dump flour everywhere.

Granted, your boy may more physically active than other 2yos, so he gets into more troubles. Is he physically/mentally challenged on a daily basis? I notice DS2 misbehaves a lot more often when he is bored.

Good luck.

To spank or not to spank is so contriversial, there's even divided opinions in my own household. �Here's the law: http://www.woai.com/content/trouble...exas-law-say/04q17j51tUi4NURs5oHuqw.cspx

I've only raised one kid past the age of two, the other one is about to turn 6 months. �It might be different with four children. �I don't keep my eyes on my boy the whole time I'm in the store but we've always played call and answer games, right now it's "red robin" "yum", and "o, o reily's" "auto parts". �Seriously cheesy, especially when ds, dh, and I are doing these call & answer in a round on a car ride. �But if one of us starts this game the others always play which helps me keep an ear on him when I'm not looking. �So, there's my embarrassing secret.
We round-robin cheesy commercial jingles. It's all about making a human connection.

Look for my new thread "education = discipline IMO" for the remainder of this thought.