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Suitable punishments for a 2 year old
My 2 year old son seems to go through difficult periods that last weeks every few months. He's been doing this since he was in infant.
He's been a demon for the past few weeks. It seems that he has days when he wakes up intending to piss us off--and he succeeds very early in the day! He starts doing everything he knows he shouldn't while looking at us to verify that we're watching. He'll hit us and other children, throw toys, put stuff in his mouth (something he doesn't do that much anymore), try to draw on walls, etc. Lately he's started throwing food for the purpose of angering us.
We usually do time outs as punishment, but in this phase they don't work. Instead of sitting in the time out corner he'll run out screaming with joy, knowing that he'll be chased and put back. He even tells us how funny it is to him. We don't have a pack-and-play to put him in, and I don't want to put him in his crib for punishments.
When he throws/eats crayons, we take them away. When he throws other toys he shouldn't be throwing, we take those away. He's unconcerned and moves on to the next activity he knows he shouldn't be doing--there is an endless supply of those.
There are days when I feel like I've only yelled at him for hours, so I end up trying to read to him, something we both like doing and one activity that doesn't usually end badly. However, we can't read all day, and sometimes he doesn't want to because he'd rather be pissing me off than sitting quietly with a book.
Any advice? Can you tell me where I might purchase a toddler-sized straight jacket? ;-)
He's been a demon for the past few weeks. It seems that he has days when he wakes up intending to piss us off--and he succeeds very early in the day! He starts doing everything he knows he shouldn't while looking at us to verify that we're watching. He'll hit us and other children, throw toys, put stuff in his mouth (something he doesn't do that much anymore), try to draw on walls, etc. Lately he's started throwing food for the purpose of angering us.
We usually do time outs as punishment, but in this phase they don't work. Instead of sitting in the time out corner he'll run out screaming with joy, knowing that he'll be chased and put back. He even tells us how funny it is to him. We don't have a pack-and-play to put him in, and I don't want to put him in his crib for punishments.
When he throws/eats crayons, we take them away. When he throws other toys he shouldn't be throwing, we take those away. He's unconcerned and moves on to the next activity he knows he shouldn't be doing--there is an endless supply of those.
There are days when I feel like I've only yelled at him for hours, so I end up trying to read to him, something we both like doing and one activity that doesn't usually end badly. However, we can't read all day, and sometimes he doesn't want to because he'd rather be pissing me off than sitting quietly with a book.
Any advice? Can you tell me where I might purchase a toddler-sized straight jacket? ;-)
Tags: punishment
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by DonnaKat on -
We have to use the crib for time outs because my daughter will not stay put otherwise. I had similar concerns about using the crib, but it's the only thing that worked for us.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
His reward, it would seem, is getting your attention, which would mean a possible strategy is to find a safe place for him to be where he can't escape and isn't getting your attention.
Can you find a pack-and-play 2nd hand or reconsider the crib? It's sort of too bad that they don't make toddler straight jackets, or (as I have daydreamed many an hour) a way to hang them by their securely by ankles for awhile.
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
I haven't found punishments very effective with my kid, though lord knows I've tried. Redirecting towards something else is the most effective thing we've come up with. In a situation where he wanted to run and scream, I would take him outside and essentially have him play fetch or run laps until he's exhausted. If he wants to hit we go beat pillows or a bop bag. If he wants to rip we give him things he can rip up. We wrestle and hurl him about. This is extremely tiring though, this redirecting and keeping patience. So if you do come up with that way to hang them by their ankles Wookie, let me know.
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Permalink Reply by StitchyWench on -
I got nothing, my son is still kind of like this but in 8-year-old ways. Punishment is not his thing, it never does anything to stop the undesired behaviors from returning - still we try the isolation chamber (AKA his room). We take away things he likes, we force him to consider others and their needs and wants - like it or not.
No matter what we try, he pretty much wants the world to work his way all of the time or he is going to do his best to make everybody else as miserable as he is. He's really quite an ass sometimes. He's also very loving, and brilliant in a lot of ways. So we keep him around and hope that some day he'll be more sweet than ass hat, on a daily basis.
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Permalink Reply by mightyninjamom on -
Well, if you're not willing to use your crib, I've got nothin', cuz that's where I put Little B during this phase. He hated being away from the center of attention, so it worked pretty well.
Also, I had to make sure I also praised him a LOT when he did something right. I think it was hard for him to hear all the yelling when he did something wrong, but not a lot when he did something right.
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