My latest challenge is learning how to train my child in appropriate behavior. I need to pick the brains of a few of you moms out there, and read some books about discipline and training. How do I train Paul to know that while it is ok to bang on his drum and throw his plastic ball, it is not ok to bang on and throw other things? My current strategy of a firm "No" and redirection doesn't seem to be working well. Also, we have really tried to keep Paul from throwing his food on the floor. A while back, we started taking his food away if he did this... I now have accidently trained my son to throw his food as a way to signal that he is done eating. ack! We are also trying our hardest to NOT play the "uh-oh" game. When Paul drops (or more likely throws) something like his cup and says "uh-oh", we just take it away. My question really is, at what age can I really start to expect certain levels of behavior and obedience from him and how do I train that? Is he still too young for me to expect any of this to work? I am really starting to understand what everyone was saying about how when your babies are little, even though they require so much work, it is so much easier! They just sit there or lay there and can't really give you "trouble". haha!
Here are a few recent pictures of the little guy! Enjoy! And please feel free to comment with any advice or wisdom or recommendation of books about discipline!
Paul's baby dedication at church a couple months ago. I know you can't see me in this picture, but I couldn't resist. Paul kept trying to bat Reese's hand away when he was praying for him. It was pretty funny. He is about to do it in this picture.
Paul and his cousin Caleb. They are going to be trouble!
Sleeping like a little cutie with his blankie. :-)
Meeting the baby goats at ECHO with Uncle Brian.
Visiting Jeremy and Felix in Chicago. "What are you doing Uncle Jeremy?"
Those Shaw boys!!
Hey Mom! I've got a stick!
"Ball! Ball! Ball!"
2 comments:
I'll have to think about what we did when Ava started to throw food on the floor. I DO remember having that problem, but I'll have to think about how we dealt with it. We don't have that problem now, so apparantly it worked! :)
I think with teaching him other stuff...we started very early on explaining things to Ava. (Even if we thought she was too young for understanding). What we learned was that she understood MUCH more than we thought she could much earlier than we expected. It throws you off cause they can't communicate well yet- but they understand a lot. So, for the drum thing, I would probably tell her "no" about drumming on what she's not allowed to drum on and then give her something that IS acceptable to drum. But I always tried to explain why- you can only drum on your toys, but not other things. Eventually he'll get it! :) We did LOTS of redirecting!
Good luck and I'll think about the food throwing.
Paul is a smart little guy if he can figure out to throw his food when he'd done with it so you'll take it away! I don't know how you feel about spanking, but it works pretty well for us. Noah is quite strong willed and has a mind of his own, and I think that he would be a real terror if I didn't spank him. Of course spanking a 19 month-old isn't a real big ordeal. Just enough to let him know that he is to obey. I think that they understand so much more than they can communicate at this age. I do think it gets a little easier when they can talk better. Except that then they can talk back and there are attitude issues to deal with! :)
Post a Comment