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Well, after my initial euphoria at finding a discipline technique that seemed to be controlling my little demon’s behaviour, the naughty chair (NC) doesn’t seem to be having the desired effect any more.  In fact, Mic thinks it’s a bit of a joke to go on the NC now.  She even asks to sit on the NC when she is behaving badly - or if I threaten to put her on the NC in the hope that it will stop her naughty behaviour, she tells me that she wants to sit on the NC, so she continues doing whatever evil act she is doing until I follow through with my NC threat!  Then she gloats at me for the duration of her time-out! Aaaaarrrggghhhhhh!!!!

So I feel pretty powerless to control her tantrums at the moment.  And using the words ‘no’ and ‘don’t’ seem to encourage her to keep doing whatever she is doing even more enthusiastically - usually with a knowing little smirk from her before she continues!  No matter how much I try to explain why I don’t want her to do something, she doesn’t seem to listen to a word.  How did I end up with such a difficult toddler? I realise that it must somehow stem from my behaviour because where else would she learn to be so defiant, but I can’t think what I have done to make her act the way she does.  I know it’s a ‘terrible two’s’ thing for her to have tantrums and not want to comply with anything I ask her to do, but I honestly feel somedays like hitting my head against a brick wall would be less painful than spending the day with her!  I know that sounds really mean of me, but I am just so tired of fighting with a two year old over every aspect of our daily routine - she doesn’t want to do anything unless it was her decision in the first place to do it.  So getting dressed, doing teeth, eating, leaving the house, getting in the car seat or buggy, bathing, going to bed - it is all a battle, mostly with her winning!  How ridiculous it that - my toddler gets to make more decisions about what we do during the day than I do?!

Anyhow, yesterday I ordered a book through Amazon called ”1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12”.  It was recommended to my husband by a friend of his who had similar problems with their son when he was younger.  Hopefully it will be able to give me some good advice - I will let you know once I’ve read it whether it is helpful or not!

xxx

Was the book any good?

We’re having issues with Matthew at the moment - he says No to everything and defiantly carries on doing things after we’ve told him not to.  The “123” trick used to work but now he just looks at us while we count.

A classic example is trying to keep him in his bedroom at night - he’s worked out how to open stair gates (we have 2 different types) and he just won’t stay in bed.  He goes to bed at around 8pm but it’s usually 11pm before we can actually get him to fall asleep - for 3 hours he comes downstairs every 5 minutes asking for a hug and a kiss (even though at 8pm we usually go through about 15 minutes of hugging and kissing).  We threaten to take his teddy away, and his night light - and we do follow through with the threats - and it still doesn’t stop him.  We even promised him a particular toy he wanted at the end of the week if he stayed in bed every night - it lasted 2 days. 

Don’t really know what else to try!

No easy answer Jen.

All kids are different, which is as they should be, but there are times when it would be nice if they all responded in the same way, bedtime is one of them.

I don’t know how you go about this at present, but can you find way to make it so that Matthew looks forward to bedtime.  Perhaps you can find a new story book that you only read to him at bedtime. It would have to be a the right sort with the idea that he would be so relaxed listening that he fell asleep mid-story.

As an alternative to a story book, how good are you at making up a story as you go along that carries forward to the next night and so forth until you have to start a new one. My brother was very good at this with his grandson. His grandson is now 14 and still remembers about those stories and the characters my brother created. Animals, birds, etc with names and even speech on secret missions delighted him. It rarely failed and was something new each night at bedtime.

You my have other ideas that you can apply, but the main thing is to make it so that Matthew looks forward to bedtime. It’s worth trying anyway.

Let us know how you get on. 

Jen, I have exactly the same “no” problem as you have with Matt - Mic also seems to translate ‘no’ as “please continue doing what you are doing with a naughty smirk while you’re at it” and it drives me crazy!

I’ve just finished reading the 123-Magic book.  I haven’t actually tried using the 123 approach yet because the book tells you to wait until you’ve read all the chapters before you implement it to make sure you are doing everything correctly.  I will probably give it a go but my initial thoughts are that, even though it says it is for kids from age 2 upwards, I think it probably works better with kids who are a bit older, like say from around 4yrs upwards, because a lot of the incentives would be a waste of time with my 2yr old.  Strangely though, I started using my own made-up counting technique a while ago (before I read the book) and have been using it a lot lately (it started by accident because I used to count to ten and back down to zero with her to get her used to the numbers and then started counting backwards from ten whenever I was going to end something she was enjoying - like “you have ten more seconds playing with the shower head and then I will switch it off and bath-time is over” - said nicely of course).  It seemed to prevent tantrums because she knew what was coming.  Now I use it when I give her a choice, like at bed-time she knows the routine inside-out because we always do the same stuff in the same order but she still chooses to pretend she doesn’t know what’s coming so I tell her she has ten seconds to e.g. lift the bed rail/switch off the light/close the door or I will do it.  She always calls my bluff but as I start counting backwards from ten she very quickly makes sure she does what needs to be done as she would hate for me to take away one of her very important bed time tasks! I used my counting thing this week when we were walking home from a friend - she has a tendency to walk into other people’s front gardens and inspect their flowers, steal a few stones, etc. and, as with everything, ignores me when I tell her to keep walking with me (am always worried the owner will come out of their house and shout at us for tresspassing!).  Anyway, I told her she had ten seconds to come out of one of the neighbour’s gardens and she actually listened!  Not sure how often it will work but I’m sure if I’m inventive with the alternatives (like ‘you do it within ten seconds or no CBeebies for the rest of the day’, or ‘no choccie custard’ - squeezy ones from Tesco are her favourite).

Matt must be knackered going to bed so late every night.  Does he sleep in the day at all?  I think Sisyphus has a good idea about the story inventing.  Also, does Matt usually have stories and quiet time for his cuddles in his bedroom with no other distractions before bed-time?  If he is currently going straight from being downstairs with you to his bed to sleep then maybe you should extend the time he is in his room with you before bed so he can wind down and get more tired before you say good night.  We switch off the TV before bath-time and then once Mic is in her PJs we get her milk and one of us does the bed-time routine - milk, then toilet, then a story, then sleep - all done in her room with the lights dim and kept as calm as possible.  Now this bit is something you may not agree with, but we close Mic’s door and she can’t open it because it needs a bit of a tug to get it open and she doesn’t have the strength.  We have a monitor in her room so we can hear what she is up to and there is nothing in there that can cause her harm, just her clothes and some teddies.  I say this because you mentioned that Matt can open his stair gate.  We used to leave Mic’s door open when we first put her in a ‘big girl bed’ and it was a nightmare - like Matt she used to come out of her room every two seconds (if that!) and one day we decided on the advice of friends (and my mother) to close her door.  It was the best thing we ever did.  As soon as she learnt that she couldn’t get out of the room she didn’t try to unless there really was something which was bothering her, in which case she calls for us and we go up to her.  It may be something trivial like ‘I want my socks on’ but then when you put them on her she will usually not bother us again.  She still chats to her teddies and sings some nursery rhymes for a bit until she is tired enough to fall asleep so she is quite happy on her own with the door closed but she is not hassling us every few minutes, which is the most important thing because we can get on with dinner and have some time to ourselves. And she actually is the one who closes the door behind us - in fact she insists on being the one to “lock the door”! Anyhow, it is just a thought but maybe if you make sure Matt’s room is safe (which it would be anyway as he is up there unsupervised regardless of whether the door is open) and leave a night-light on, then try closing the door so he can’t open it.  Explain that this is the new bed-time routine and that once you have had your last kiss and cuddle and said good night that he has to stay in his bed-room with the door closed because he is a big boy and that’s what big boys do - if there is a genuine problem he can tell you and you will be listening on the monitor.  I know it sounds a bit cruel and I was really reluctant for ages to close Mic’s door because I thought she would think we had abandoned her, but she was only upset for one night (the first time we did it, which must have been about 3 months ago) and then it wasn’t an issue again.  That said, she still wakes up in the early hours of the night every night and wants to come and sleep in our room, which we tend to give in to - one step at a time, eh? 

Sorry about my huge rambling (have you fallen asleep reading it?!).  Good luck and let me know how you are getting on.

xxx

You’re right Claire. The key is making bedtime something they look forward too and ultimately accept as part of the their routine.

Closing the door on a safe room with monitors also helps introduce the idea that it is their own place for the privacy that they will need as they get older. By adopting the habit of gently knocking on their bedroom door before entering it also teaches them that it is polite to do this themselves.

As you say Claire, one step at a time.