Disciplining a 1 year old?

missyrad · May 2013

What do you do to discipline your 1 year old?? My husband and I want to avoid any aggressive behavior but my son is at that stage where you tell him "no" and he laughs and will continue to do it.

quietlyexpecting · May 2013

I agree with redirecting and sometimes just totally removing them from wherever/whatever they are at or doing...despite a tantrum and tears sometimes. I also try to put a word with the no. Like Danger, or Hot or Sharp. I find that now she will point out things to me that are hot (she's not quite able to say those multi syllable words just yet) and say No! I find (at 20 months) she will now say no then quickly do something than say no again. It's almost like she wants to imitate me telling her no just like she imitates everything else I'm doing at this stage.

kcisthebombdotcom · May 2013

Ditto the redirection.

for aggressive behaviors like hitting/biting, I'd redirect to gentle touch and do it to him/ her along with putting my hands over lo to demonstrate. If it continued I would put lo down and walk away for a short period. If lo went back to hitting again I'd repeat. If not i offered up praise.

eav2c · May 2013

As PP's mentioned redirection is really key. If he's doing something wrong or acting badly, instead of say no SHOW him something else he can do. Disicplining a 1 year old is a joke because they simply cannot understand it and it tends to result in worse behavior.

tbmadeamistake · May 2013

While I agree with PP that redirection works really well, I also think that you need to reinforce the word "no" and what it means, even if he laughs. I make sure I say No firmly and move her from whatever she's not supposed to be doing, sitting her down a few feet away. For instance, she'll try to play with the dishwasher while I'm loading it. Redirecting is great but she still needs to learn that she can't play with that, and I still need to be able to load it. I say no and move her a few feet away. Some nights I have to do this 10 or more times in very short order, but eventually she gets it and goes to find something else. Now she barely even looks at the dishwasher when it's open. She's 12 months. It's super repetitive and boring on my end to have to keep doing it, but it works really well. We do that for pretty much everything, unless it's dangerous and then we say no and redirect. Other than that, she's perfectly capable of redirecting herself when she gets bored of hearing the word No and being moved.

ghostof5letters · May 2013

Redirection. Discipline isn't understood.

zhirsch · May 2013

My 20 month old son was hitting and pushing and as a gentle discipline believing parent I was saying things like "we use gentle hands," "hitting hurts, we don't hit we touch nice." It wasn't working and he would just smile and do it more. It was embarrassing and isolating because I was sick of having to leave every event early because my kid decided to start throwing punches. We started implementing one minute time outs and it worked very quickly. We explain that he needs a time out to cool down because hurting people is not ok. After one minute I go in and get him, ask him why he's there and he'll tell me "No hit." I give him a hug and he's on his way. After only a week or so just the mention of a time out was usually enough to get him to stop. I will say that this is probably only effective for the 18+month crowd, and maybe even later depending on the child, but it worked well for us. I use it very sparingly, only for hitting really, and don't consider it a punishment but just a time to reset.

TobieRose · May 2013

Lilygrace48:
While I agree with PP that redirection works really well, I also think that you need to reinforce the word "no" and what it means, even if he laughs. I make sure I say No firmly and move her from whatever she's not supposed to be doing, sitting her down a few feet away. For instance, she'll try to play with the dishwasher while I'm loading it. Redirecting is great but she still needs to learn that she can't play with that, and I still need to be able to load it. I say no and move her a few feet away. Some nights I have to do this 10 or more times in very short order, but eventually she gets it and goes to find something else. Now she barely even looks at the dishwasher when it's open. She's 12 months. It's super repetitive and boring on my end to have to keep doing it, but it works really well. We do that for pretty much everything, unless it's dangerous and then we say no and redirect. Other than that, she's perfectly capable of redirecting herself when she gets bored of hearing the word No and being moved.

This! I try to make sure he listens to "no" and understands what I'm saying. Sometimes that's enough and he stops what he's doing. Often he stops and then the temptation is too great and he goes back to whatever he was doing, at which point I say "no" again and move him away. Sometimes he smiles and goes for it like it's a game; I just try to be consistent no matter how he reacts.

I once heard someone use the term "training" for this age rather than discipline, and I really liked that idea. They aren't old enough yet to be responsible for their actions yet, so discipline as such is inappropriate. But you can start teaching them to listen to you and expect them to begin to learn to listen. This is why I think redirection alone is never enough, even though it is obviously important.

awesnap · May 2013

Ditto to a lot of pp. they don't understand.

I tried to teach her actions that were appropriate. If she was touching something I could get her to do, hands up! And she would raise her hands (and stop touching whatever) And i would physically remove her and give her something else to do. If she was too rough, we did gentle hands, and if she threw food off the table, I tried to give her something better to put it in. I also learned that she needed different kinds of food so she didn't get bored- which led to throwing food.

We put the lamp behind a gate and put something in front of the tv so she couldn't touch all the buttons. And baby proofed as much as possible. At 19 months she is starting to test us and the rules we have set in place and have been enforcing consistently are much easier to get her to stop than other ones we were inconsistent in.

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Disciplining a 1 year old?

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