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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Confession : I have absolutely no idea how to discipline my kid
Something snapped in DD this past week and she has been so fresh 
Pulling the tablecloth when dishes are on the table, going in my purse and taking my phone and throwing it, dumping food out...and she looks at us for a reaction and laughs. If we take her away from something, she goes back for it. I have no idea what is best to do. I feel we are so inconsistent. Ignore her and when she gets no reaction she stops? Time out? Loudly telling her no so she knows we are serious? Redirection really doesnt work anymore. I dont know if she is just hitting her Terrible 2's early, but she has been relentless. Please tell me I am not the only one feeling this way....
Pulling the tablecloth when dishes are on the table, going in my purse and taking my phone and throwing it, dumping food out...and she looks at us for a reaction and laughs. If we take her away from something, she goes back for it. I have no idea what is best to do. I feel we are so inconsistent. Ignore her and when she gets no reaction she stops? Time out? Loudly telling her no so she knows we are serious? Redirection really doesnt work anymore. I dont know if she is just hitting her Terrible 2's early, but she has been relentless. Please tell me I am not the only one feeling this way.... This discussion has been closed.
Re: Confession : I have absolutely no idea how to discipline my kid
I don't think there is any one answer to this, because each kid is different, so each approach has to be slightly different too.
For me... at this point, ignoring the behavior works, or if it is dangerous, telling him "no" then explaining why he can't do that and redirecting his attention. Or just removing him from the situation all together.
You are def not the only one who feels this way... I promise you. There is no instruction manual for our kids... but it would be nice if there were.
I feel your pain bc i find what works for one LO doesnt for the other.
DS is like you daughter he will look at you out of the corner of his eye with a big grin as he is about to slam the fireplace doors or splash the water in the dog bowl etc. and laugh as i run over to scold him. No sooner to i redirect him or remove him he will go charging back laughing. i have found giving him a stern no and smacking his hand or hiney (yes flame away!) works bc he realizes im serious.
where as DD you just say "no"in a stern voice and she will break down in tears hahaha. so its definately kid dependant. This parenting is not cut and dry. Most days i have no clue what im doing. I liked it easier when they were itty bitty bc i knew exactly what they needed when... now... ugh!
So funny how they can be so different
I asked a very similar questions on here this morning and one of the mom's recommended this book. It looks interesting and I just ordered it from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1930429002/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER
I can just tell you what we do (which probably won't be much help, lol).
We don't use a tablecloth so that one is n/a. He doesn't get into my purse because I keep it out of reach and we keep anything that we don't want him to break out of reach (namely, cell phones). He loves to dump some food out though... at which point, we just take the food away because he would eat it if he wanted it.
We don't take him away from things, we take things away from him. One of the things that he does that gets him into trouble is bang objects (remote, toy, sippy cup, etc.) on our coffee table (there are so many marks on that thing, lol). We tell him, "No, do not do that, Noah. That is not nice." If he continues, we take whatever it is that he was banging on the table away from him. End of story.
Matthew Kevin
7/31/83-7/20/11
Met 1/8/00
Engaged 4/21/06
Married 9/29/07
Two beautiful legacies: Noah Matthew (2 yrs) and Chloe Marcella (8 mos)
Day Three
I have been told to read this book. (But I haven't yet...)
https://www.amazon.com/Have-New-Kid-Friday-Character/dp/0800719026/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I26F07CKSNGEXT&colid=J72OVSK9LVKX
I found Dr. Sear's The Discipline Book a good starting place when I first felt overwhelmed by DD's sudden behavior. Happiest Toddler on the Block is good too and I beleive they even have DVDs. Now I focus on picking my battles and being firm when needed. It gets harder and more difficult as their language abilities increase.
Examples from this morning:
*DD insisted on wearing her 2 piece bathing suit to school. I let her wear the bottoms over her pants because it is not a big deal if she wears it or not. But, she also wanted to wear the top around her legs and it was impairing her ability to walk. So, she got to wear the bottoms and not the top even though she screamed for the top but refused to wear the top over her shirt which would have been o.k. too.
*DD has a milk allergy and really wanted some of DH's cereal that already had cows milk on it. I could force him to switch to soy but it is the only dairy he has left. I explained to DD that the "moo-moos" milk aka cows on the carton "hurts Harper's tummy, makes Harper's tummy have blood (it does), Papa can't share moo-moos with Harper". She looked at me wrinkled her nose and left it at that.
I take a lot of deep breaths these days ;-)