I'm not into spanking but I would like creative ideas for redirecting my intense, sensitive toddler (17 months). I am getting into Love and Logic but there's not a whole lot I've read for this in-between age. Love your ideas, please.
Dr Sears has some wonderful ideas on what to do besides spanking, as well as other ways of communication:
http://askdrsears.com/topics/discipline-behavior
At 17months, they do not have much of an attention span.. maybe 2 minutes at a time.. They are newly mobile so everything looks like a great place to climb, jump, run into.. They are totally exploring their environment and they physical abilities. Teach him what "he can play with" and what "we only use our eyes for".It will take more than 12 times for him to catch on, so be consistent.
We do not run in the house. We run outside. Our feet stay on the floor inside. We use an inside voice. We are soft and gentle with fragile things.
And so he need to be keep busy.. He needs LOTS of active play. Outside is the best way.. Running, jumping, climbing, yelling.. peddling..
Get him out side in the morning and again in the afternoon or evening.
Inside, make his room a place he can really play with everything. Make sure it is really child proofed. Let him build tall towers and knock them down.. Have a big space for him to drive his little cars and trucks.. Let him bang on things. When it is time for laundry, let him help you. Carry some towels or get a small grocery cart, so he can roll it to the laundry room.
Clean cloths.. have him take all of the socks out to be paired up.. Have him find all of dads, underwear so they can be folded. Give him, his underpants, or clothes to put in his dresser.
When you are prepping dinner, put him in his high chair or booster seat to help "cut" veggies with toy knives. or have him tear up some lettuce for salad.
Just include him in what you are doing.. make a schedule for each day so you have times to play with him, times for him to help you, times for him to be outside, time to run errands, meals, snacks and a good nap.. Also he can play on his own, but it may need to be close by so you can keep an eye on him.. Remember about 2 minutes.. is all of the attention span he has right now. So still lots of redirecting.
Prevent, Ignore and redirect. Hitting, biting, etc. TO in crib for 30 seconds.
Lots of eye level talking, while touching. Also, if you say "don't jump," they only hear the 'jump,' so stay positive, "we sit on couches." Right now you are in teaching stage, with the occasional fit. Ignore fits. If your child needs you to help calm him, pick him up and hold him, but do not "pay attention" to the tears.
Until about 18 months redirection and distraction work best. Once they are 18 months you can start with the time-outs, holding him or her there so they get the idea and then once they know the "time-out" place they go there on their own, or place them in the crib or pack and play. Make sure they see that they are missing out on the activities going on around them, and that you tell them after the time-out, "You had a time-out because you did such and such," so they learn the consequence of said behavior.
At 17 months, I was doing very short time-outs. I used the pack-n-play, set up downstairs, as the time out spot so I could put him in it, say (for example) "Time out because there is no hitting" and walk away. I didn't really walk away, I just stepped out of sight so he couldn't see me, counted to 30, then walked back in and said "No hitting. Are you all done hitting?". If he said all done, then I would take him out and redirect him to something away from the original problem.
I was told a good rule of thumb is 1 minute of time out per year old. So between ages 1 and 2, 1 minute is long enough. Longer, and they don't remember why they are in there so it doesn't do any good.
There's this AWFUL stage about this age where discipline is mostly ineffective but the behaviors definitely warrant discipline! Whatever you do, just keep working at it and eventually, when his mental capacity catches up to it, it will begin to sink in. Such a hard age for this kind of thing - my son is almost 2 and it's finally starting to sink in with him as he is beginning to understand more what we say, understand his actions have consequences, etc.
