We sat down with psychologist and father-of-three, David Coleman to talk toddlers and discipline and found that he had a very interesting take on discipline and how we interact with our tyrants, ahem, toddlers.
So when does toddler discipline begin? "So maybe change the idea of discipline and instead think about trying to understand your toddler. What is it that your toddler is trying to achieve, what are their goals? This makes their behaviour seem a lot more rational."
The 5 Essentials Of Understanding Toddlers From Psychologist David Coleman:
1. Role Modeling A toddler is learning about the world through experience, not through rational, intellectual thought and processing. They want to touch things and taste things and experience things. For example: "How high up am I? I won't know until I hit the ground!" As opposed to thinking: "Oh it looks like I'm very high up now, maybe I shouldn't jump." They find out about the world by practical experience. And that means everything from physical connections but also how they interact with people. So if the world tends to be very loud and shouty and cross with them, then they're learning that that is the way to interact with the world as well. So what we do as adults with toddlers regarding our role modeling is critically important. If we want our toddlers to be able to talk in a quieter voice, we should use a quieter voice. When we start getting shouty ourselves then all our toddler is learning is okay, if I really want to be heard here, I have to raise my voice.
2. Forget the Naughty Step You can really throw out a lot of the ideas of behavioural discipline and techniques. All that kind of stuff is a disaster with toddlers – it's not going to do them any favours, because again all they may learn is that when I do something I end up out on this step. Or perhaps what they are even more likely to learn is: "I'm out on this step, and then I have a big five or ten minute row with my parent about why I'm on the step, I don't want to be on the step..." By now it's getting prolonged and whatever the original misbehaviour was is entirely forgotten by the toddler.
3. Natural Consequences Having natural consequences for things is much more sensible for a child because then they realise that their actions cause a reaction. There's a response to their actions, so if they don't like the response to their actions, then they just have to change their actions. So if the child knocks over a glass of milk, admonishing them doesn't help them to learn that if you make a mess you have to clean up a mess. What you want is for them to learn the consequences, that they have to come to the sink, squeeze out the cloth, go back to the table, mop up the milk and so on. You have to overlook a lot of those kinds of small mistakes and misbehaviour as just your child not realising the length of their arm, so a lot of it is parents thinking about their child's environment and making it as toddler-proof as possible. And then just chilling out and spending time with them instead of fussing and directing all the time.
4. Planned Ignoring Toddlers are intuitive and are probably working out that when they do make a particular kind of fuss they get more notice, so then they might use that whiney voice. If we want to change that, then we do have to introduce what we call a 'planned ignoring.' It's not ignoring the child and stressing them out because we're not responding, it's saying to the child: "when you talk in your normal voice then I'll help you out, until then I'm not going to pay any attention to you." So let them know that while they whine you're not going to engage with them. When they use their nice voice, really focus and try to work out the problem.
5. Focus on Positives If they are interacting nicely really focus on them, so they learn that when they are calm, they get lots of notice. That encourages them to play independently also. Make sure you focus on them when they are being good and when they are being whiney absolutely pull back but be clear with them that you are doing that and tell them when you are going to re-engage with them i.e., when they are calmer or when they've stopped kicking the kitchen cupboards!
David Coleman is spokesperson for Pharmaton's Back to School Campaign.
