Toddler Discipline: Everything is Hilarious

JoJoEspana

So Caroline is generally very well-behaved, but for the past few months, we've had trouble disciplining her.  When she misbehaves or isn't listening, we'll get onto her, and she dissolves into a fit of laughter and thinks everything is just hilarious.  She'll act really silly and won't listen to anything we say, and it takes forever to get her to calm down and listen.  And of course it is really infuriating. 

Sometimes just walking out of the room will get her to calm down and listen, but a lot of times she'll follow us, laughing and screeching the whole time.  The  only thing that will consistently "break her" and get her attention is when she inadvertently hurts herself - stubs her toe, hits her head, etc from her wild behavior (like once she was laughing it up when she was on the potty, and the rared her head back and hit it on the back of the toilet.  She started crying, and then she listened and did what we said).  I really don't want to spank her, so even though I'm pretty sure that would get her attention and make her listen, I'm just not willing to do that at this point.

 Has anyone else dealt with anything similar?  Have you found anything that is effective?

ETA:  We do time-outs, and while generally it works pretty well most of the time, the times that she does the silly behavior is mostly when we're getting her ready for bed, bath, or nap.  I think it is her way of delaying it, so I feel like giving her a time-out would be giving her what she wants since that would just put off bedtime, etc.  But maybe we should try it?

susangilchrist

Emma had a period of doing that.  I ended up getting a little more "serious" (i.e. raising my voice more, being a little rougher when walking her to time out, etc.) and she stopped.  Don't get me wrong, I never jerked her around, or spanked.  I just wasn't as nice and gentle as I had been.  She got the point.  The times that it didn't work, putting her in time out and walking out of her line of sight had a decent effect.  Good luck - it makes you want to wring their little necks, doesn't it??  

KT&John

I think you are right about the delaying. We do not deal with silly behavior, just straight out not listening and listing out 10 million other things she HAS to do before she can go for a nap, to bed, etc.

I agree with you that time out is giving what she wants in this situation. I have done it with Cadence and she happily says OK and goes to sit down..clearly what she wants..more time.

For Cadence, I warn her that if she continues I will take away her favorite doll and she will not have it for the nap/night. That gets through to her.

I hope you find something that works for Caroline and that you all are doing well with beautiful baby Smith!

kbrickell

This is Allison exactly, looking forward to reading your responses.

Mrs.Guz

kbrickell:

This is Allison exactly, looking forward to reading your responses.

Must be the age, because its Abigail too. / 

ebearwife

Any time a situation starts getting out of control, its the corner for us.  We tried everything and nothing worked better than being consistent with the corner and timing it on the microwave.  We do the supernanny method, warn, punish, talk it out, hugs and kisses.  Most of the time the threat of the corner will stop the bad behavior but when she goes we stick to the steps.  Three minutes is not a long time to delay bedtime, really, but I know how harried you must certainly feel with a newborn on top of this nonsense.  And a couple of times of me confiscating her favorite dolls for the night put an end to bedtime nonsense (getting out of bed, etc) in a fast hurry.

If she is acting out bc of Smith, I would try to be empathetic but firm.  She gets positive attention when she behaves and time out and ignored when she does not.

MrsL1022

We had similar issues with Colin not taking time outs seriously and laughing and joking and getting up. I started putting him in his room. We flipped the lock so that if he wouldn't stay there we;d have the control. Once we took the control and forced him to take his time out where and when WE said it seemed to get through to him. It took about 3 days of very consistent room time outs but now all I have to say is " if I get to 3 and you don't stop xyz then you will go to your room" that seems to work really well. I also got a  responsibility chart from Amazon. It's by melissa and doug. It is great b/c it has things like sharing, no whining, picking up your toys, brushing your teeth, respecting your parents, hands to yourself, etc.... Very age appropriate tasks. I hung it in the back hallway and it is all magnetic. I give him all of his smiley faces every morning and if he 'violates' one of the things on the chart I take him over to it and remove a smiley face and put it in my pocket and explain WHY it's gone and how he can get it back. So far this has worked like a charm. He is horrified if I take a smiley. This in conjunction with time outs on my terms has really gotten through to him. Not sure if this would work for you but the chart was the best $15 I have spent in a while. GL I know how infuriating the not listening can be. They are cute but maddening at the same time. 

K&P414

My bff's pedi suggested doing a "hand squeese" as a physical alternative ot spanking.  Her daughter didn't respond well at all to time outs but did really well with the hand squeezing. You don't have to put her into an Australian Rat Hold or anything, just firmly grasp both hands and squeeze them tight enough that she realizes you are being serious.

JoJoEspana

Thank you for all the responses.  It's good to know that we're not the only ones that deal with this, but I'm still at a bit of a loss because we've tried most of this stuff and it's not really that effective.  She does respond well to praise, so maybe we'll try the rewards chart.

She actually gets even sillier if we try to be a little rougher or sqeeze her hand or arm, etc.  She thinks we're rough-housing and playing.  And she also has a high pain tolerance, so that's another reason why I don't want to spank her - I feel like we'd have to beat the crap out of her to get through to her and let her know we're serious.

We take away her favorite toys and/or privileges, and sometimes it works, but sometimes she couldn't care less.

As far as time outs go, we do the Super Nanny thing, and I know that 3 minutes isn't a long time, but we reset it every time she gets out, and she thinks its a hilarious game to see how many times she can sneak out. 

Seriiously, she really does think everything is funny.  When she gets in her silly mood, it can literally take an hour for her to calm down and listen.  I don't really think it's her acting out because of hte new baby though - this has been going on for a while.  I am just reaching my breaking point with it.

K&P414

JoJoEspana:

Thank you for all the responses.  It's good to know that we're not the only ones that deal with this, but I'm still at a bit of a loss because we've tried most of this stuff and it's not really that effective.  She does respond well to praise, so maybe we'll try the rewards chart.

She actually gets even sillier if we try to be a little rougher or sqeeze her hand or arm, etc.  She thinks we're rough-housing and playing.  And she also has a high pain tolerance, so that's another reason why I don't want to spank her - I feel like we'd have to beat the crap out of her to get through to her and let her know we're serious.

We take away her favorite toys and/or privileges, and sometimes it works, but sometimes she couldn't care less.

As far as time outs go, we do the Super Nanny thing, and I know that 3 minutes isn't a long time, but we reset it every time she gets out, and she thinks its a hilarious game to see how many times she can sneak out. 

Seriiously, she really does think everything is funny.  When she gets in her silly mood, it can literally take an hour for her to calm down and listen.  I don't really think it's her acting out because of hte new baby though - this has been going on for a while.  I am just reaching my breaking point with it.

I can completely relate to this.  What I started doing with Emma (Lord only knows if it was the right thing to do or not) was going straight to what used to be my last resort.  Instead of doing time out, then a stern talking, then taking away something, etc. etc. etc. I just skipped to the most severe punishment that I was willing to do, it had to be big enough to really get her attention.  So instead of no t.v. or taking away a toy I would take away the t.v. AND her toys right off the bat, for like 30 minutes if she ignored my first  warning.  I did feel like that helped her to see that I wasn't playing around and that I meant business. 

I've had to do that some with Tess but so far she seems to still respond to discipline pretty well, at least better than her sister does.