Hi 9-12 and balance between exploring and discipline

MarMat

Helou helou!

I'm jumping over, glad to read you ladies

Now to the balance thing.

I'm the mommy who lets DD explore everything and I enjoy it even though it creates more work for me. DH on the other side wants to start discipline asap. For what I've been reading on google. It's now a stage for exploring and keeping baby safe. This week DD has been super energized, she's not crawling yet but standing and reaching for everything is her thing and she has also starting with tantrums when we take away something that she's playing with and DH wants to start discipline with her.

I would love to hear your experience / book recomendations or anything useful for us to learn. We want to get agreements on parenting. TIA

emiliemadison

Discipline can only be effective if the child understands why they're being disciplined and can appropriately respond to the discipline by connecting it to the action and then avoiding that action in the future because they understand it was undesirable. 9 month olds simply do not have the capability to do that, so discipline will do nothing but upset her.

Explain it to your husband like this: Imagine you travel to a foreign country and dont know the language or the local customs. You go to a store and start browsing around when suddenly someone runs up to you and says something sternly in a different language and then grabs you and moves you to a corner of the room and sits you on a chair. You dont know what you did, why it was wrong, or what to avoid doing again in the future. How effective was that? Not at all.

If you take something from her and she has a tantrum, that is her ONLY way of telling you "Hey, I wanted that!". And for a 9 month old, she has no concept of right and wrong, so even if you've told her a million times, "That's not yours", she doesnt know what that means.

  She isnt having a tantrum because she wants to show you who's boss or to get on your nerves. She simply lacks any other way to communicate what she wants. "Punishing" her wont help, because she wouldnt understand WHY she was being punished and she certainly wouldnt connect that punishment with not having a tantrum next time she did something you dont like.

For now, the only thing that you can and should do is to redirect behaviour. It's ok to say "No" and simply explain why "No, dont touch. Owie!" if she reaches for something dangerous. But  other than that, simply redirecting her is the ONLY thing that will be effective.

curlychic

We asked our pedi about this at our 9 month visit. She basically said that if DS is going to hurt himself or someone else (ex-he's about to pull the Christmas tree over, or he's hitting the dog) then redirect him. Otherwise, let him explore.

We've gone with that. Occasionally he gets a bruise because he fell on something or the dog's hair gets pulled, but he has learned pretty quickly what works and what doesn't!

Good luck!

RJM678

In no way do I consider myself on expert, but I think some form of "dicipline" is good. However it really depends on the parenting style you choose as well. DD does the tantrum thing. The style of parenting we are going with really focuses on not giving big emotional responses to bad behavior so they don't want to do it for attention and teaching there are consequences for your actions. (very very bad and broad description)

Anyway, we let her explore but do not let her get into or play with things she shouldn't. If she throws a tantrum we do not "let her get her way" but we don't get angry. We basically ignore the tantrum and make sure she does not hurt herself. She usually gets over it very quickly and is now starting to redirect her attention without the tantrums. 

 The book we like is "The Power of Positive Parenting". My sister is a school teacher and said this was used for teaching as well and loves it. So far I really like it and agree with it. 

CTri17

Marmat YGPM

MarMat

CTri17:

Marmat YGPM

thanks! YGPM back

KateLouise

The only time I say "no" or "argh" with a serious tone if she's reaching for something dangerous: the hot oven, the heater, about to pull the christmas tree down etc etc etc.

If it's just something that's just a hassle factor then I let her go for it.

If it's something that I don't really want her to have but is not immediately dangerous, then I talk about what she's doing, "oh look you're playing with Mummy's library books. We need to look after these because they're not ours. Let's pick them all up and put them somewhere safe, and now we can go and...."

Obviously she doesn't know what I('m talking about, but I figure that it's my tone and behaviour that tells her, "you're not in trouble but these aren't for you." 

Also I'm building habits around my own behaviours and reactions. I don't need to over-react to her pulling things out of my handbag. I do need to act quickly when she's reaching for a bottle of bleach.