Teatopia

OMG. Amelia does the SAME thing. She "punishes" herself when she knows she misbehaves and it freaks me out! I have no clue what to do. I am up to my ears in the terrible twos already. I am so, so happy to hear I am not the only one! (I've actually been reading it a lot on other April moms blogs lately).

It was good to see you, again. Funny how our timing keeps working out when it's not planned.

I enjoyed the stories today. Sorry she is testing your patience. She is a smart cookie at such a young age. She takes after both mommy and daddy!

The thing that worked the best for when my Little Man starts getting into something or acting that way is finding a toy or activity to devert his attention. He always seemed to do it when he wanted attention or was tired. I just read an article yesterday saying that children prefer any attention they can get so if it's negative attention because they are doing something they aren't supposed to do, they will do it anyway. Good luck I know how frustrating it can be!!!

Lore has been doing stuff like this since she was about 10.5m... and even now time outs don't work... we yell no and then smack her hand... and that normally gets her to stop... if she keeps doing something wrong then we just put her in her crib... and that really works...

Same thing going on around here and has been for a few months (and my kid's only 14 months old...). Testing limits. Who knew it would start so early?

I'm doing the same, no matter how ridiculous it feels at times. Time outs and no no nos over and over are the only thing that really can be done. Plus, the time out serves as a moment for you to collect yourself, especially as the behavior continues to repeat itself over and over.

haha ... fun times ahead for you! :) Lucas started acting "two" around 18 months. I seriously think that sometimes you just have to get their attention, and if that requires raising your voice, then so be it. At this age, they're discovering things and learning boundaries ... they say that parenting a toddler is like a multiple-choice test, hehe :) I don't think that children this age like to be alone, so sometimes instead of saying "time out," we tell Lucas to go to his room for some alone time. He doesn't like that and seems to get the point that he shouldn't do (whatever it was) again. Good luck!

Oh, and I meant to also say ... distraction works WONDERS. Best thing ever. Distract her with something else. Sometimes we just have to distract Lucas with doing something else and he forgets about what he was doing before, hehe :) I highly recommend distraction.

Oh yeah, they definitely start misbehaving way before age 2. I think as soon as they are able to understand that they shouldn't be doing something then they're old enough to be punished. Lila definitely understands when I punish her. I just say "If you do that again you're going to sit in the corner" and she will say "No" or she'll stop doing it, depends on her mood. She actually hates sitting in the corner, and she runs from me when I try to put her there sometimes. I think you've just got to be extremely consistent. Don't let her get away with it even once. I think it's pretty normal for kids to put themselves in time out. I was just talking to moms in my group about that today. Anyway, other than time out, at this age especially, I don't think there are any safe, effective means of discipline. Just keep up what you're doing.

If you think about it, she's in her 2nd year of life, so she is IN her terrible 2's!! My Pediatrician reminded me of that when I asked him why Darci was being so bad so early!!! LOL. He said it's a common misconception that Mom's think the terrible 2's start at 24 months. The actual age this kind of behavior usually starts is 16 months!! Some food for thought! :)

Cooper started testing the boundaries at 15 months or so. He is now nearly 17 months and I try to be creative with how I handle the tantrums and bad behaviour. I don't believe in smacking, and although he has had a couple of smacks on the hand, I figured out pretty quickly that didn't work with him. So now I try distraction - talking about something else in a calm voice, like going to watch cartoons or drawing, or I take him outside because he loves being outside. When he has a tantrum, I just ignore it and walk away and he has learnt that a tantrum doesn't achieve anything. I must say the 'bad behaviour' is reducing as he's learning to communicate more and the fact that he knows I won't react to naughtiness. I also have put Coops into time out when he's really out of control - just in his cot for a 1 minute or 2 and it does the trick, because he doesn't like to be there!
Where Coops goes to daycare, they have a naughty chair and although he has never been put in it because he is too young, he puts himself in it and laughs!
I think it is all about them learning about the world and where they fit in, as well as how to relate to people and situations :)
Good luck! Olivia seems like such a gem - so clever! :)

I have no idea what to tell you. Miss T is obviously too young to misbehave, really, but my nephew (who I sit for on Mondays) is almost 18 months and really not. We've been dealing with hitting and biting. I want a book that's basically "dicipline for all ages." But I haven't found that just yet. I'll let you know if I do find a good book though. One blog I read had this post about it: http://www.healthybot.com/2007/07/25/hitting/
Hard stuff though.