how would you handle this? (telling lo NO!)

BeachMama7693

Our tv in our living room is on a stand but low to the ground so lo is able to reach the bottom of it. under the tv is the cable box, dvd player, etc. and unfortunately there is nowhere else to put it. lately she has made a game of pushing all the buttons and reaching for the power cords behind although i have tried hard to conceal them. we tell her NO firmly and try to redirect her attention but she just laughs and goes back over and over to push them, looking directly at me as i tell her NO. my husband started lightly spanking her hand so she would stop, and she just looks at him and cries, obviously not because he is hurting her but because she wants to push the buttons.

i know at a young age its about redirection, but how would you handle this? is the hand "spanking" ok? or should we just pick her up and take her away after saying no?

raeski2008

I don't have any advice, just wanted to say we're going through the same thing. Not just with the TV but with our cats too. She just won't take no for an answer and smiles and does it anyways. The light hand smacking doesn't faze her one little bit, lol. For now all that seems to work at all is pick up and redirect

erbear

I'd move her away. I would not spank a baby.

katlizabeth

Keep redirecting.  We just kept saying "oh no...no touch" in a very serious tone, and our kids finally got it.  Maybe we were lucky, but it does take time, effort, and patience.  I don't do hand swatting, so I personally wouldn't try it.   Can you build a barrier around that stuff...a gate of some sort?  Good luck!

BeachMama7693

thanks for the advice ladies... we will keep with the re-direction. i dont think the hand swatting really works- it just makes her upset because she doesnt understand. just wanted to get some input to see how others are working situations like this!

DawnJM25

We have the EXACT same problem.  For awhile I tried to say NO firmly and redirect, but then she learned the word "no" (even though that's one of the only times I ever said no).  She would walk over to the TV and cable box, look at me, say "nooo" and then push the buttons. 

What I'm trying to do now is not give her any attention at all when she goes near the TV/cable box/DVD player.  Or, I randomly start singing a song she likes so she pays attention to me and forgets what she was doing.  I hope it's a phase she grows out of!

I'm not totally against spanking, but I don't think I'd do it at this age, and probably not for this behavior.  DD loves to push buttons on toys, remotes, appliances, etc.  She isn't being naughty, she's exploring.   

 

Netty_3

We had the same issue and ended up buying coffee table and ottoman set that was a leathee storage cube. To replace our wooden set. We ended up putting the xoffee table part in front of the tv and electronics. They're high enough fir remote and out of reach. Lo likes to push the ottomans around.

chardonnay24

I have a toddler who is not easily redirected, so I basically removed everything from our home that I didn't want him to touch. He has access to every room in our house except our bedroom and master bath, and it is as child friendly as possible. We have made some sacrifices, but I wanted our home to be a "yes environment" because I felt like we were just saying "no" all the time when he turned a year old.

Our TV is mounted on the wall and our blu-ray player is on top of a tall cabinet that is secured to the wall. We have the cords encased in plastic tubing and attached to the wall. The cabinet with the blu-ray player sits in front of the outlet and the cords run down the wall behind it. He still finds plenty of trouble in our very childproofed house (climbing on top of counters and tables, jumping off the couch and his highchair, disabling the magnet locks and stove and dishwasher locks in the kitchen...) so I wanted to make our house as safe as I could for all the obvious risks.

meganjoey0728

We had the same problem. So we took one of those playards and wrapped it around the TV stand. LO stays away now!

Shelleybell

Crash Into Me:

I could not hit DD.  She's in a hitting phase and DH and I are desperately working on getting her to be gentle so I'd be a complete moron to hit her and then tell her to be gentle with me.

You could try time outs for breaking the no touch rule.  They seem to work here, even if it's just long enough to break her focus on whatever she's set on doing. Right now, DD really only gets a time out for hitting.  She hits once, we tell her to be gentle, more hitting means a time out.  So, if she hits us again, we tell her that she's getting a time out for hitting and promptly set her down in the corner.  She might stand there for a few seconds before she comes to one of us for a hug.  We tell her she can't hit, show her how to use her gentle hands and then move on.

this is exactly our situation.

aliciaroset

I avoid saying NO at all costs (though I still feel like I do it 100x per day) so that when I do it actually gets through. 

We have a major problem with the dog bowl. Some things she's been able to learn not to touch but for some reason the dog water is just irresistible.  So we try not to give her any opportunities to touch it but when she does we intervene, say "I can't let you touch the dog bowl. It's dirty." and then give her something else to do. We often have to block her hand or pick her up but we always tell her why we're doing what we're doing.

If she's still going for the cble box it's because she knows she'll get some reaction out of you. She's exploring the world AND you! It's important to send the message that her behavior is no big deal to you. 

dairygirl19

I don't smack hands but I do grab them firmly (but not hard/rough..just enough to get her attention). I'm then on her level, look her in the eyes, hold her hands and tell her No and why we don't do that.

She only 1/2 gets it at 18 months but it's good practice and at least distracts her attention long enough to move on to something else. She also hates having her hands held, so she associates and stops.

Right or wrong..it works here for a lot of things. There's a 100 other things she can explore and press that isn't the tv buttons.

SoxFan777

dairygirl19:

I don't smack hands but I do grab them firmly (but not hard/rough..just enough to get her attention). I'm then on her level, look her in the eyes, hold her hands and tell her No and why we don't do that.

She only 1/2 gets it at 18 months but it's good practice and at least distracts her attention long enough to move on to something else. She also hates having her hands held, so she associates and stops.

Right or wrong..it works here for a lot of things. There's a 100 other things she can explore and press that isn't the tv buttons.

Do people think that's wrong?  I do the same thing, and I'm anti-hitting at any age... But I don't see anything wrong with holding his hands.  Then, I actually put them on my face and say "gentle touch"... Now, at only 16 months, he does "gentle touch" without me having to redirect his hands. 

Cebs222

raeski2008:

I don't have any advice, just wanted to say we're going through the same thing. Not just with the TV but with our cats too. She just won't take no for an answer and smiles and does it anyways. The light hand smacking doesn't faze her one little bit, lol. For now all that seems to work at all is pick up and redirect

This. Our daughter is very independent and persistent.. and stubborn haha I will tap/smack her hand but only after i've said no and moved her or her hand away from things. She doesn't even care that i'm touching her though, now when my husband just says no firmly, or be nice she breaks down in huge crying fit lol. She is def. just at the age of testing her boundaries with each of us. 

I really don't have any huge advice, other than we are doing the same thing.  There are times where i will put her in her PNP ( which she hates lol) since she doesn't really understand time out, so instead of fighting with her i just pop her in there and let her fake fuss for a few minutes.  then we start over.. again lol.

preggersin2011

The word NO is forbidden in my house. I had a similar problem with all my wine/alcohol bottles & the knife draw. The experienced parents at work said that locks for the draws don't work and at 1yrs of age your child is old enough to be 'trained' . It was a really rough weekend but I got through it and LO doesn't touch the knife draw or the wine bottles at all. Don't use the word NO, don't hit the child, and redirection isn't always the best either because then they won't learn how to listen. Every time LO put her hand on the knife draw, I would push it back closed and held her hands on the draw at let her cry. I would say things like 'this is not a toy' or "no thank you, not yours". I kept this up until she stopped opening the draw. Then she would just hold the handle. I would then move her hand off the handle, and move it next to her body and let her have a small tantrum. Same thing with the wine bottles. Also, whenever we are in a house that isn't child proof, I only have to hold her hands once and say "this is not your toy" and she won't touch it again, at other houses I will give her something that she is allowed to play with too after she stops having a small tantrum. 

Same thing worked when i needed to teach LO what the word "freeze" means and you aren't allowed to walk outside w/o holding mommy's hand. I would say "freeze" and whenever she moved I would hold her still, w/o hurting, and tell her "freeze".  We walk to and from the car between the house, school, shopping centers, pretty much anywhere since she started walking. Its been a couple of months and now at 13 months if she pulls her hand away she stops walking, or if i let go and say "freeze" (like to open the doors or pick up packages etc) she won't move.  

TiffanyBerry

"No" doesn't mean anything if you don't follow through.  So, if she's not allowed to touch it, don't let her touch it.  Stop her hand before she touches it, put a gate up in front of it (or a cloth or anything that takes time before she can get to it), or take her out of the room.  Then give her some buttons she CAN push. 

Redirect doesn't mean "hey, you want to push buttons or jump on the couch, but we don't like that, so here, sit and read a book or shake this rattle".  You aren't meeting her developmentally appropriate desire to push things (like buttons) and experiment with cause an effect - so find things that do meet this desire.

And be 100% consistent.  If you let her get away with something you've told her not to do, you've actually just taught her to keep trying.  To keep trying so she can figure out how many times or in what special way she has to do it so that she gets away with it.  Make her bored of her efforts, so that she learns NOTHING she does will let her do whatever you are telling her no for.

march2008

meganjoey0728:

We had the same problem. So we took one of those playards and wrapped it around the TV stand. LO stays away now!

I would not bother saying "no" as it's really just an abstract word to a toddler that doesn't mean anything. I would not hit. I would continually redirect as soon as she got near. It absolutely requires a lot of patience.

I also think that putting a play yard gate thing in front of it, if you have no other means to conceal it from her attention. It would probably save you a lot of frustration!  

NewFamily09

I don't have any advice, but from a toddler's perspective, it's kind of cruel to put fancy buttons and flashing lights at eye level and then tell them not to touch them.  Is there something you can put in front of the cable box/ dvd player to cover them up?  Or maybe a different piece of furniture that has doors?  At your LO's age, I think your best bet is to find a way to get rid of the temptation.  I know when our kids were that age, we had to move the DVD player to another room, put the CD's higher, etc.  It's definitely not convenient, but it was better than telling them not to touch them 100 times a day or having to clean up the DVDs off the floor.

beautiflaw

Our DDs are the same age! We have been through this a hundred times! I couldn't say if its wrong or right but we don't believe in doing hand spanking, at least not this young. I think kids understand the word No but they don't understand its true meaning. We just try redirecting. Eventually we got tired of her getting to cords and stuff too though and we brought in a bunch of boxes and things and put them in front of all the cords and dangerous objects. We also rearranged the furniture to block off certain areas of the living room. Our living room looks like we just moved in and haven't unpacked yet but at least its safe.

beautiflaw

Also I should say that we don't believe in it but DH has done it a couple of times out of desperation, and he said it didn't do any good.

nyki06

My daughter is almost 22 months and we have this same issue. I make her take a short "time out" for touching, meaning that she has to sit in a chair for about a minute without getting up (which pisses her off big time). Since being more consistent with doing that when she touches the TV she has almost completely  stopped touching or if she goes for it I remind her that she'll get a time out and she backs off. Figuring out discipline at this age is so hard!