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Disciplinary Techniques That Work for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Social rules

Disciplinary Techniques That Work for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Part of a child's development involves learning social rules. It's your job as a parent to teach your little child how to be well behaved.

Many of the problem-prevention techniques and disciplinary consequences designed to help you raise a well-behaved child, and described earlier in this book, are also effective with little kids, with a few adjustments for their age group. I'll describe nine techniques that work especially well for toddlers and preschoolers. Some of these you've seen earlier (geared for older kids), and some are here for the first time:

• Stop the action
• Look for the positive intent
• Educate
• Set clear verbal limits
• Set physical limits
• Provide choices
• Natural consequences
• Use active listening and the “sportscasting” technique
• Time-out techniques
• Redirecting the action

Stop the Action and Look for the Positive Intent

Say Helen shoves Mira off the swing. First you stop the action. “Helen, stop pushing. What's going on?” Once you have the children's attention (and this may mean providing a physical limit, too; see below), you can look for the positive intent. No matter how terribly your toddler or preschooler expresses her feelings (whether curiosity, anger, or whatever), it's important to honor the positive intent and impulse behind the behavior as a part of how you respond to her. That does not mean only acknowledging that it's there. The misbehavior is not okay, and you need to deal with it, but until you let the child know that you understand why the misbehavior happened, any consequences will not be fully effective.

What's Helen's positive intent? Helen may be feeling angry at Mira and unclear how to best express it, she may be trying an experiment to see what happens to Mira when she falls, or she may simply want the swing.

“Helen, it seems as though you want Mira off the swing,” you might say. You don't know exactly why she's pushed Mira, but you're honoring the fact that Helen has a reason, or an emotion, behind her behavior. When you look for the positive intent, you're trying to find an impulse or a need in your child that you can support, so that your correction comes from a place of empathy.

Educate

Your little one also needs to know the impact of her actions. “Helen, when you push Mira off the swing, it hurts her.” Helen may simply be unaware of how strong she is, too. Giving her information about the consequences of her actions is part of teaching her to make decisions on her own.

Verbal limits

Set Clear Verbal Limits

Obviously, it's not okay for Helen to push Mira off the swing. You set limits with your voice, “Helen, you may not push Mira. We are gentle with our friends. I'd like you to come down now.” Even when kids are very verbal and understand what you are saying (and why), they may not have self-control, and they may not be capable of stopping themselves or obeying your requests. It's important to set the limits verbally, even when your child is too young to fully understand you. You're teaching your child that your family uses words to settle problems.

Set Physical Limits

Because it is rare with little kids that words are enough, follow up verbal limits with physical limits (and do it before you get angry, so there's no punitive quality to it). A physical limit is imposed when you stop a child from drawing on the wall with both your words—“No Padma, we don't draw on walls. I'm going to take you into the bathroom, now, and then we'll both clean it up”—and your actions.

Hitting them, beating them, and chaining them to the wall—we've already established that these are not options with your kids. (Actually, I shouldn't joke about this. For some people, it's not so self-evident.) Kids don't always listen, and their bodies sometimes need help stopping dangerous activity. If your two-year-old is running into traffic, saying, “Pookie, that's not such a great idea,” is not such a great idea. Pick up your child!

Physical limits—like removing the pen from Padma's hand-are different from physical disciplinary techniques (like slapping the pen from her hand). Physical disciplinary techniques are not okay with one exception: Sometimes little kids need to be physically restrained. Physical restraint is like a very strong hug, and, without hurting a child, simply restrains her until she can calm down.

Behave Yourself!

Allowing natural consequences to teach your child is only appropriate when it is safe, and the consequences aren't too severe or long lasting. Letting kids walk on cliffs to learn what happens when they fall (yes, it's a natural consequence) is absurd. But so is letting a two-year-old play with a champagne glass. Yes, she'll learn that glass breaks, but oh, the possible ramifications.

Provide Choices

Choices are a part of daily life with toddlers (“Do you want to wear the red sweater or the blue one?“) and they are an essential part of teaching them discipline. Giving a kid choices (“Will you stop throwing sand or should I help you stop?”) teaches her that she's entitled to opinions, and that she has some say in her own life. It shows her respect, and it demonstrates your trust. Remember that kids may not always be able to choose from the choices you've given them. Here's the thing: No matter whether or not they can, you need to give them options. The more experience they have with making choices at a young age (especially when under stress), the better they'll do when they're teenagers faced with larger, more life-threatening choices (like, “He's really cute, and so are his friends. If I have a few drinks with him, he's really gonna like me even more.”).

Natural Consequences

Little kids are rarely logical enough to understand logical consequences, so the best approach is to allow, and point out, natural consequences. “You hit Davey, now Davey is sad and crying, and he doesn't want to play with you anymore today.” “You threw your cereal on the floor, now it is all gone.”

Active listening

Use Active Listening and the “Sportscasting” Technique

Active listening mirrors back to the speaker what she's said. Since little kids are not very verbally skilled, using active listening with little kids relies more on “hearing” what they are saying through their actions, than does on listening to their words. It's a way of letting them know what you understand about their feelings, and it's a way of helping them clarify how they feel.

“Sportscasting” is related to our old friend, active listening, though it concentrates more on the events, rather than on the feelings involved. In sportscasting, you observe and describe what is going on. “Judy, I see you are dumping sand out of the sandbox and throwing your trucks. I saw that Henri laughed at you.” As a result, your child is able to figure out why she's feeling bad about the event. Like active listening, sportscasting can be used to help resolve conflicts. You're merely the announcer, describing events and letting each child see that he's been seen, and that there is somebody else, too, who has a point of view on the subject. That's a step toward kids' resolving their own problems.

Behave Yourself!

Like all discipline, time-outs are a teaching tool. If you just slam a kid in a room and say, “Think about it,” he'll learn that when he's frustrated, angry, or too much trouble, people don't want to be around him. Many of us only learn to deal with anger and frustration when alone, rather than in a supported situation. Is this healthy?

Time-Out Techniques

• A time-out is a way of separating your child from the moment, person, or object that is causing the trouble. It's a way of saying, “C'mon, Dude, take a rest from it.”
• It's not a “punishment” and it shouldn't be threatened. (“Jerry, stop biting or I'll put you in a time-out!”) A time-out should simply be imposed, immediately, when appropriate.
• Keep it very brief. The idea is to break the action and mood (not the child!) and allow a little cooldown. For little ones, keep a time- out to one minute per age.
• You can put a child in a time-out in a separate room (more on this in the “Behave Yourself!” sidebar) but a better idea is to keep the child near you, perhaps in a special chair.
• When a child returns from a time-out, don't put him back into the environment (or activity) that was part of the problem. Start him on a new activity (redirec-tion-see below) and immediately find something positive to reinforce. For example, say Lance is throwing food and Vikas and Katie are laughing hysterically. Lance won't stop, so you separate him from the action for three minutes in another room. When you bring him back, don't put him back at the table with Vikas and Katie. Give him painting materials and positive feedback (“What great colors!”).

Redirecting the Action

Most disciplinary techniques for toddlers and preschoolers involve redirection. It may be the most basic disciplinary technique of all. If you don't like a baby grabbing at your hair, you give him a rattle to hold. As kids get a little bigger, redirection becomes part of almost every disciplinary action, whether active listening or sportscasting, imposing verbal or physical limits, or using natural consequences, time-outs, and so on. Redirection is a way to move through the misbehavior and onward to something else, and keeps the discipline from becoming punitive.