Runaway Two Year Old
Category:
Q: "With my 2 and half yr old. She frequently will run away from me when I call her, wanting to turn it into a game of chase. Sometimes this is at a store or getting into the car, sometimes it is when she needs a diaper change etc. I have tried to do roll playing games with her to help praise her for coming or following instructions. She loves this game, but won't always do it in real life. I am not sure the best way to help her want to obey or what should be the consequence for failing to follow an instruction at age 2. I feel like I am doing too much reasoning with her, which I feel is really not the most effective thing with a 2 year old, but I am not sure what else to do so she starts to understand the consequences of her actions. I have lately been feeling very frustrated and out of control with her. I hate feeling that way and I could really use some ideas."
A:
Pre-teaching her to come when called before it is ever time is a great thing to do to prepare her to repeat the behavior at the right time. Great Job! Keep doing that.
As well as pre-teaching, is sounds like you need to establish a consequence system just for her. You can choose to either focus on a positive consequence or a negative consequence.
A positive consequence for a two year old may be something like a skittle candy or a candy corn. Just one. I would pull my daughter aside and show her the bag of candy and then I would say, because you said, “OK” and came to talk to me when I asked you to, then you have earned a candy corn. For this week every time you come to me when I ask you to, you will get to have a candy corn. I will keep them right here in my pocket. The candies are just for you, but you can’t have them unless you are following instructions. OK?”
This positive system is not bribery, because it is not being offered as coercion during a tantrum or disobedience. The treat is presented as part of a plan for the behavior of the child, and won’t be given unless the child chooses to obey.
A negative consequence system for a two year old would look like this. You have a short conversation with your child explaining that every single time she doesn’t say, “OK” or ask to disagree appropriately when you tell her to come to you then you know she needs to go to time-out until she is ready to say, “OK.”
Then, every single time she runs off, you say, “Molly, you are not saying OK, so you have earned to go to time-out.” At this point, very gently, with hardly any words, take her to time-out. She needs to stay there until she is ready to practice saying, “OK” and follow instructions. When she practices, after time-out she still gets a candy if you have done that system.
Remember, your two year old is still learning how to interact with people, so be patient. Part of being patient is pre-teaching. Try to remember to say, “I am going to give you an instruction right now. You need to say, “OK” to get your candy. OK?”
Finally, don’t beat yourself up. Every parent has stressful days. Just don’t forget that the most important thing you can do with every day is look into the eyes of the people in your family with love and acceptance. Accept her two year old ignorance and be patient while she learns. Bad behaviors don’t hurt you. They are signs to help you be a better mother. We need to be grateful for all of the learning we get to do with our children. Our whole families are stronger for it.
Sorry - one more
Sorry - one more question....if I take her to time-out and she doesn't calm down so I can teach her, then what? In general, I just wonder what are realistic expectations of a child this age to learn these skills and the best way to go about it - considering their vocabulary is smaller, etc. You must get tired of answering the same kinds of questions all the time! Thanks. :)
My daughter is almost 22
My daughter is almost 22 months. She doesn't say a lot of words yet and doesn't say "OK" yet. Occasionally she will get upset and hit me or her brothers or just break down in a tantrum on the floor. I usually just ignore her and she will come out of it. I guess my question is how is the best way to begin teaching the four basics at her age? Thanks for the role playing idea...what else? I have also started to say "OK Mommy!" when I ask her to do something so she gets familiar with that phrase and trying hard to praise her when she does things right.
Thanks! (I have lots of questions lately!)
Lauri, I have thought
Lauri,
I have thought through this one many times too, and have made my own personal decision. We believe in eating healthy, but still have snacks. Sometimes we eat apples and peanut butter, or pretzels. Some people might not even use the kinds of snacks we do for health reasons, whatever kind of snacks you use at home are your family's snacks. I wish I could say we stay away from sugar completely. We don't. For some reason life just naturally produces sugary things from time to time. When those things come along, we enjoy them too.
Snacks are good things. Offering food is a sign of love to most people. But there is no rule that the snack has to be bad for the person's health. The time when healthy snacks are a problem is when children are really used to eating unhealthy snacks.
Food consumption is a really psycological. Many people develop different attachments to food for different reasons. I have seen families who use food as a reward and have no problems, and families who do the same and have eating association problems. I think it really boils down to the tone the parent uses when explaining the food consumption or consequence.
In short. We have thought of these things too, and choose to acknowledge that snacks are a big motivator to our children, so they need to be used. However, we try to keep our food choices healthy, and keep the tone in our home healthy too.
Hope this gives you some insite. I will have to address this topic at length another time though. Good question.
Do you think we are addicting
Do you think we are addicting our children to sugar when we give them sugar and candy for rewards. I have read that we should not use food items in training children. It may motivate them to do what we want, but it might reinforce a message that sweets are rewards. We eat them when we do good. I am not sure. What do you think?
This is a great topic! We
This is a great topic! We have 5 beautiful children who were all adopted (4 through foster care and 1 through private adoption). Our oldest daughter will be 5 in a week. She is extremely impulsive and has anxiety and sensory issues and problems with motor planning. We don't want to medicate her, and are trying to teach her to understand about stranger danger, helping with simple chores, minding, and to not run off. She runs off anyway and rarely follows directions the first time. She is a visual/memory learner, and can memorize anything you say to her, even just one time. We know that for the most part she's not necessarily trying to be naughty, so much as she can't seem to control it. She laughs and runs away and seems to get a "sensory rush" from it. We are struggling to get her to help with simple chores, like cleaning up the toys, etc., and feel that it's not fair that her older brother always ends up cleaning things up by himself. (We know that her bio-father had ADHD and many other issues, as did her bio-mom.) Our dauhter wears a backpack w/ a leash on it, often. We get criticized for doing this, but we are trying to keep her safe. We rarely have to pull the leash out and use it, most times, she wears the backpack, just in case. (The leash tucks into a pouch on the back). We have 5 children ages 6 1/2 and under (3 of whom have special needs of some sort). What kind of suggestion do you have for a little girl who has these kinds of issues?
Sincerely,
Ranee and Pete Hansen in AZ.
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