Toddler Behaviour

I am probably a lot more relaxed about some stuff than other people, partly coz there is just me (I am a single parent) and I can't be policing everything all the time. I sat down a while ago with a stack of parenting books and worked out what was important to me and what was less important. I ended up with bed times and manners, no hitting/violence, no screaming or whining, and its important to have respect for people and things (your own and other peoples). Most other things I let go, especially food. Food is one battle I can't be bothered with. I serve up one thing and thats it, she either eats it or she doesn;t. I don't hassle or cajole, I just say thats dinner take it or leave it.

Umm, discipline I do Dianne Levy's swoop and scoop. I ask G not to do something, then I go over to her and tell her not to (while trying to distract her with something else) and after that there is time out which is 2 minutes on her bed in her room to think about how she should be acting. I try my best to think of win-win situations - ok so she doesn't want to get dressed but what if I try make it a game like putting her legs in her pants and seeing how fast she can pull them up or starting the zip off and getting her to do it herself. Or distract by asking her to help with something like could you carry this to the kitchen for me or go and find me some pegs.

I try to not sweat the small stuff. What does it matter if her clothes get dirty or whatever. I guess what I'm saying is work out what is the most important to you for him to do (or not do) and all the rest is just stuff you can work around.

Ok cool - so I am the same I think, the other day left unattended for two mins with a crayoln he drew on the wall - instant removal of all crayolns and time out.

But I think its the flapping and being silly I am trying to ignore, the over tired silly behaviour they get, not wanting to put PJ's on and running about etc.. i have decided we need to not make a fuss about as the more fuss we make the more he acts up.

I will think about what things we want to make an issue and go from there.

Gabrielle drew on the couch today (just a wee bit down on the leg) and I took the felt off her. I didn't do time out because I felt that taking the felts away was enough of a consequence.

Sometimes I feel like I haven't really explained the appropriate behaviour, I am just expecting her to know what to do which is a bit difficult for a 22 month old. So I explained to her that felts only get used to draw on paper and that she must never draw on furniture, walls etc. She accepted that and went on to play with something else. But if it happened again I would reinforce the whole "we only draw on paper" message.

I also try and figure out what is really the problem - sometimes the silly behaviour is because G is upset/scared/overtired/hungry. I make a point of trying to figure out how she might be feeling before reacting to the situation. So today she was throwing a tanty over leaving my friend's place (and the toys she was playing with there) but I realised it was past lunchtime and she was probably hungry for her lunch. Once I said she could have some food in the car she stopped the tanty, put the toys away and practically ran to the car. Toddlers aren't good at communicating and stupid/bad behaviour is sometimes not what it seems at first glance.