Parents Best of the Web Awards
“We clicked, liked, and followed our way through more than 500 expert-driven nominations to unravel the gems that will make your life easier and more fun. How did anyone raise a kid in the predigital age?”
By Karen Cicero from Parents Magazine
We’re under the category Living Well
Have you wondered if you could take a toddler to a restaurant and have a good time without relying on an iPad for entertainment? This is absolutely possible as long as you have the right expectations, a sense of humor, and a desire to build family memories. In the “old” days when our kids were toddlers, there were no iPads or smart phones so we thought we’d share some ideas to keep your toddler engaged in a restaurant.
Before we go further, understand this: when you go to a restaurant with your toddler(s), you are “going out to eat,” NOT “going dining.” Always have the back-up plan that at any time, if needed, you will convert the entire meal to “take out” status. As long as you accept this backup plan, you are set.
Choose the restaurant wisely. You do not have to eat junk food or “fast” food. Many restaurants with really yummy and nutritious cooking can work for families with toddlers. An important feature to look for: the restaurant offers high chairs or booster seats. If it does, you can infer that the restaurant is “toddler friendly.” Without this attribute, attempt to eat at this restaurant at your own risk and don’t say we didn’t warn you! In addition, find out if the service is fast or slow. Even some “family friendly” restaurants have slow service- this is asking for trouble. Avoid these establishments.
Set the stage. Teach your children how to behave in a restaurant. Play restaurant in your house. Practice “Yes, please” and “No, thank you.” Tell them how they will get to make a choice of what to eat and unlike at home, to try a variety of foods at one meal if you all order something different.
Have reasonable expectations: Research the menu beforehand to make sure you will find something on it that your toddler will eat. Alternatively, just bring your own toddler meal with you and take it out once your own food arrives. Or bring toddler “hors d’oeuvres” that will not spoil his appetite but can be used in emergency if the service is slower than you expected. Examples are thinly sliced apples, portable fruit cup packed in juice, or a stash of low-sugar cereal such as Cheerios® to hand out very slowly.
If the wait staff is young, they probably are not familiar with toddlers and may not understand that waiting is difficult for young children. Ask for your check to come with your food. Consider skipping appetizers so that everyone’s food comes out all at once. Usually toddlers are not happy waiting for food while their parents munch on arugula.
Focus all of your attention on your children. Going to a restaurant with toddlers is not date night, it is family night.
Help your toddler be successful at waiting for the meal to be served or at waiting for everyone to finish eating. Bring along one or two (not the library!) favorite books that either your toddler likes to flip through or likes you to read to her. Bring some paper and crayons – many “family friendly” restaurants supply these but it’s always better to be prepared. My oldest was always entertained with a small matchbox car. We could draw roads for the car on paper or he would just drive the car along the table edge or chair – anything can become a road.
Play games such as “I Spy” with your toddler to pass time while you wait to order or wait for your food. “Where is the man wearing a hat? Where is the picture of the fish?” Talk about the restaurant. Point out where the kitchen is. Point out the food servers: “They write down what we want to eat. They bring us our food!” Point out the bus crew “See, they are cleaning up!” Count the tables. Count how many babies are in the restaurant.
Convert items on the table into make-shift toys. Developmentally toddlers love putting things into other things. Put the pretty pink sugar packet and the white packet into a cup. Dump them out, and do it again. A paper placemat can be scrunched into a ball to roll around. And with a little paper folding, you can make a cootie catcher for pinching little noses. Also, there’s nothing more fun than touching ice sliding around a plate.
We do not recommend walking around the restaurant while waiting to be served because of the potential danger of crashing into a waiter or waitress. Certainly one parent can walk outside with a toddler and the remaining parent can call/text when the food comes. BUT remember, if you are in the habit of all sitting down for at least one meal a day at home, it will be natural for all of you to sit together in a restaurant, and a luxury for the parent who does the most jumping up and down during a home-served meal.
Restaurants are not only for dinner! While my twins did not eat out much as toddlers (hassle factor outweighed the fun factor), we did note that they ate the most food willingly over the longest period of time at breakfast. So we occasionally went to a local deli for Very Early Weekend Breakfast where they could feast slowly on enormous delicious pancakes and my husband and I could enjoy some coffee while it was actually still hot. Bonus: we even could talk to each other because of the concentration my twins paid to picking up every piece of pancake on their own.
Help clean up, and give generous tips. You want to endear yourself to the restaurant staff. It’s great when the wait staff WANTS to serve you when you return (“Oh, it’s that great family with the really cute toddler who loves my Elmo impersonation, says “thank you” when I bring her extra saltines, AND they tip well. That’s MY table!”).
Build your toddler’s self-esteem: Praise your toddler for eating calmly, for sitting without yelling, for his patience: “Good job waiting for your food to come!” As soon as your toddler is done eating and running out of entertaining things to do while sitting at the table, the meal is over! Try to end on a positive note.
Finally, if you end up with a toddler tantrum, just remember the back-up plan. Don’t kill the meal for the rest of the diners in the restaurant. Just pick up your melted-down toddler, convert to take-out, and try again another time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and sometimes it takes a few tries of eating out with your toddler before you actually all have fun. Fortunately, God/Nature makes toddlers cute even when they are crying and covered in tomato sauce!
Julie Kardos, MD and Naline Lai, MD
©2016 Two Peds in a Pod®
Spelling test on Friday? Algebra unit test next week? SATs looming? Our guest blogger, child psychologist Dr. Jessica Collins, gives tips for calming test anxiety.
Test anxiety is a common source of stress for both students and parents. Despite your best efforts to help your child study more effectively, instructing your child how and what to study may actually increase their anxiety as your suggestions are likely to be based on your own study style preferences. Instead of offering your advice or opinion, we suggest you try some of the following:
Breathe. Help your child relax by practicing diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing increases oxygen in the bloodstream. It is a way to interrupt the body’s response to stress and promote a relaxation response instead. This strategy can be used before, after and DURING test taking!
Relax. When you are feeling anxious or stressed, one of the ways your body responds is with muscle tension. Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is a strategy that helps relieve that tension by completing a series of exercises in which you tense your muscles as you breathe in and relax them as you breathe out. PMR can also be used, anytime and anywhere!*
Promote Organization. Before your child begins to study, ensure that he/she has all of the necessary materials (i.e., pens, highlighters, note cards, books). Help your child group his/her study information into categories or test subjects. Organizing information before your child begins to study will allow him/her to spend more time with his/her nose in the books and less time searching for missing papers.
Break It Down. Work backward and help your child identify smaller content areas, within a test subject that he/she can focus on, one at a time. This will help your child feel less overwhelmed and make studying more manageable.
Encourage Time Management. Once your child has organized and identified the test content areas, help your child create a study schedule. Make sure to start studying early. Information is more easily remembered when it is studied for shorter periods of time over a longer time period rather than spending hours cramming for 1 or 2 days. Also, make sure to schedule in study breaks.
State-Dependent Learning. As much as possible, the environment in which your child studies should mimic the test environment. Help your child find a quiet place to study in your home or at the library. Have him/her sit at a desk or table instead of lying on his/her bed. Limit distractions including background noise or music. Use a timer and offer periodic breaks if your child’s testing environment will be doing the same.
Remember the Bigger Picture. Children who experience test anxiety may easily forget how much the test grade counts towards a final grade. Help your child put the test into perspective by highlighting their successes in other areas and how those achievements are linked to future goals. For tests which are used to help determine a child’s future academic placement (e.g., SATs, ACTs, AP exams, etc.), make a list of ALL the other criteria (i.e., letters of recommendation, grades, extracurricular activities) that are also incorporated into applications. The longer the list, the easier it will be for your child to see his/her test score as one factor, out of many, that are used in this decision making process.
It is very common for students to become nervous or anxious when they must take quizzes and tests. By developing effective study skills and engaging in routine practice of relaxation exercises, many child are able conquer test-anxiety.
Jessica Collins, Psy. D.
Dr. Jessica Collins is a licensed PA psychologist. She earned her degree from La Salle University. She completed both her internship and fellowship at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, where she specialized in Pediatric Psychology.
It’s a sure sign of spring. Recently a mom showed me a splinter in her child’s finger (pictured above) from running about outside and falling on wood chips.
If a splinter is very tiny (too small to grab with tweezers,) seems near the skin surface, and does not cause much discomfort, simply soak the splinter in warm soapy water several times a day for a few days. Fifteen minutes, twice a day for four days, works for most splinters. Our bodies in general dislike foreign invaders and try to evict them. Water will help draw out splinters by loosening up the skin holding the splinter. This method works well particularly for multiple hair-like splinters such as the ones obtained from sliding down an obstacle course rope. Oil-based salves such as butter will not help pull out splinters. However, an over-the-counter hydrocortisone cream will help calm irritation and a benzocaine-based cream (for kids over 2 years of age) will help with pain relief.
If the splinter is “grab-able”, gently wash the area with soap and water and pat dry. Don’t soak an area with a “grab-able” wooden splinter for too long because the wood will soften and break apart. Next, wash your own hands and clean a pair of tweezers with rubbing alcohol. Then, grab hold of the splinter and with the tweezers pull smoothly. Take care to avoid breaking the splinter before it comes out.
If the splinter breaks or if you cannot easily grab the end because it does not protrude from the skin, you can sterilize a sewing needle by first boiling it for one minute and then cleaning with rubbing alcohol. With the needle, pick away at the skin area directly above the splinter. Use a magnifying glass if you have to, make sure you have good lighting, and for those middle-age parents like us, grab those reading glasses. Be careful not to go too deep, you will cause bleeding which makes visualization impossible. Continue to separate the skin until you can gently nudge the splinter out with the needle or grab it with your tweezers.
Since any break in the skin is a potential source of infection, after you remove the splinter, wash the wound well with soap and water. Flush the area with running water to remove any dirt that remains in the wound. See our post on wound care for further details on how to prevent infection. If the splinter is particularly dirty or deep, make sure your child’s tetanus shot is up to date. Also, watch for signs of infection over the next few days: redness, pain at the site, or thick discharge from the wound are all reasons to take your child to his doctor for evaluation.
Some splinters are just too difficult for parents to remove. If you are not comfortable removing it yourself of if your child can’t stay still for the extraction procedure, head over to your child’s doctor for removal.
Now you can add “surgeon” to your growing list of parental hats.
Julie Kardos, MD with Naline Lai, MD
©2012 , rev 2016 Two Peds in a Pod®
Squeezed through the birth canal, many babies are born with pointy, cone-shaped heads. Others, delivered by caesarian section, start off life with round heads. Few babies begin with a flat head. But as parents put babies on their backs to sleep in accordance with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome prevention guidelines, babies are developing flat heads.
Called positional plagiocephaly, a young infant’s head flattens when prolonged pressure is placed on one spot. Tricks to prevent positional plagiocephaly all encourage equal pressure over the entire head. Because babies’ heads are malleable, parents can prevent and treat the flatness. In fact, the flat shape begins to correct itself as babies spend less time lying down and more time sitting and crawling. Additionally, increased hair growth hides some of the flatness.
To prevent positional plagiocephaly, place your baby prone (belly down) frequently WHILE AWAKE, starting in the newborn period. This tummy time decreases pressure on the back of the head. Some babies are not fond of tummy time and will cry until they are back on their backs. For those kids, check out our post on making tummy time more tolerable for your baby.
Encourage your baby to look to both sides while lying down. Too much time turned to one side will cause flattening on that side. Alternate how you place the baby in crib so that sometimes she turns to the right and other times she turns to the left to face into the room and away from the wall. If your baby seems to prefer looking only to the right or only to the left, place toys or bright objects toward the non-preferred side. If bottle feeding, switch off which arm you use to feed your baby, so that the baby sometimes turns to the right and sometimes to the left . If breastfeeding, start and end on the side that the baby tends to avoid. These actions will help prevent neck muscles from becoming too tight on one side and thus allow your baby to turn easily to both sides.
Some babies wear helmets to correct their abnormal head flattening. Neurosurgeons, who are head and brain specialists, and plastic surgeons prescribe these helmets for babies who have extreme flattening. Fortunately, the majority of babies with positional plagiocephaly do not need to wear helmets.
You also may have heard of babies who need corrective surgery for an abnormal head shape. This condition, called craniosynostosis, is rare. Pediatricians monitor the size and shape of the head , check the soft spot on the top of the head and for ridges on the skull at every check-up. A baby’s skull develops in pieces as a fetus, and these pieces eventually come together at predictable places called sutures. If the pieces come together too early or the soft spot closes too soon, corrective surgery may be needed.
So, avoid head flatness by rotating your baby’s position frequently (think rotisserie chicken!) and provide plenty of “tummy time” when awake. Start when the baby first comes home.
If you are worried about your baby’s head shape, just head on over to your baby’s pediatrician and bring up your concern. It is unlikely that your concern will “fall flat.”
Julie Kardos, MD and Naline Lai, MD
©2012, rev. 2016 Two Peds in a Pod®
photo credit: Laikipia Pixabay.com
The Zika virus in the news these days reminds us of another microcephaly-causing virus which scourged our world in the not-so-distant past. In the years right before the Two Peds doctors were born (late 1960s), the virus Rubella routinely swept through the United States and the rest of the world. The airborne germ Rubella, just like the mosquito-spread Zika virus, caused most people just a mild illness that they usually never even knew that they had. After they were sick, they became immune to the virus. But when pregnant women contracted Rubella early in pregnancy, their unborn children sometimes ended up with microcephaly.
Microcephaly is a condition where a small, underdeveloped, or abnormal brain leads to a small head at birth. Many children with microcephaly have significant mental disabilities.
So what happened to Rubella? It’s the R in the MMR vaccine. We give this vaccine to all children, first at 12-15 months, and again at 4-6 years of age. We vaccinate girls to protect their unborn fetuses when they are pregnant, and we also vaccinate boys. Although boys will not become pregnant, they can contract the disease and spread it to others who are pregnant. It is standard practice for obstetricians to test all of their pregnant patients for immunity to Rubella. If a woman is not immune, she is given the MMR vaccine after delivery to prevent coming down with Rubella during future pregnancies.
Because of the success of this safe vaccine, it is extremely rare to have child born with Congenital Rubella Syndrome and its accompanying problems. The syndrome not only included the mental impairments associated with microcephaly but also was associated with blood disorders, heart defects, deafness, visual impairment, developmental delay, and seizures. In the United States where the vaccine rates are high enough, no cases have been reported since 2004. In the rest of the world, cases still occur in countries with limited access to vaccines against Rubella. Approximately 100,000 cases of Rubella worldwide per year still occur according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Scientists are working on a vaccine against the Zika virus because, as is often the case, preventing a disease is often easier, less costly, and more successful than attempting to cure it. For a basic explanation of how vaccines work, please see our prior post on this topic. Trials for a vaccine for Zika may begin as early as summer 2017.
But if we look at history, Rubella was once a dreaded virus too. Now, with the widespread use of a vaccine, although still dreaded, the rates of Rubella have dropped dramatically. Zika hopefully will not be far behind.
Naline Lai, MD and Julie Kardos, MD
©2016 Two Peds in a Pod®, updated April 2017
Dr. Kardos’s fourth child wears her coat in the snow without fuss.
There is snow on the ground, so every morning I ask my elementary school-aged son if he wears gloves and a hat at recess. Every morning I get back the same blank stare and the question, “Why?”
It’s an age-old battle between parents and kids. Parents insist the kids are underdressed and the kids insist they are overdressed. In fact, I remember in fourth grade many an embarrassing moment when my mother would suddenly appear with mittens at the bus stop. So how can parents decide how warmly to dress their children?
Infants are particularly poor at regulating their own temperatures. In general for cool weather, dress a baby in one more layer of clothing than you are comfortable wearing. Another good way to keep a newborn from losing too much heat is to keep the hat on for a couple of weeks. It’s not an old wives tale; people do lose a fair amount of heat through their heads.
However, beware of over-swaddling. Over-heating has been suggested as a factor in death from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). If your partner insists on keeping the house the temperature of a sauna and you are sweltering all year, then dress your baby in a simple onesie. Just as infants have difficulty regulating body temperature in the cold, they also have difficulty regulating their temperature in heat. In general, if you feel cold, your baby will feel colder. If you are warm, your baby will feel warmer than you do. There is an official indoor temperature recommendation for daycare centers: in cold weather, keep indoor temperatures to 68-75F.
Sleep always seems to bring out red cheeks and sweaty heads in toddlers. Are they too hot or cold? As you peek in on them after tucking them to bed, feel their hands and cheeks. Warm (but not flushed) cheeks mean they will be comfortable even if their hands are a bit cool.
For older kids, simply dress them the same way you dress yourself. Make sure areas prone to frostbite such as toes, ears and fingers stay warm. Quick tidbit: do not re-warm nearly frostbitten areas by massaging. The rubbing action causes more injury. Instead, place the area in warm water.
Sorry, you can’t use the rational, “Dress warmly or you will catch a cold.” Cold temperatures do not cause colds. Germs cause colds. However, there is one study on mice that suggests cooler noses allow the rhinovirus (a common cold germ) to grown more easily. Also, there is a phenomenon called nonallergic rhinitis which manifests itself as a drippy nose which can be set off by cold air. Likewise, inhaling cold air can set off coughing in kids with asthma. For more about the health benefits and hazards of cold weather for both kids and adults, check out this article from Harvard Health Publications.
Why it’s not “cool” to stay warm, I’ll never understand. At least for the older boys, parents don’t need to take into account the weather. The kids will wear hoodies whether it’s seven or seventy degrees outside.
Naline Lai, MD with Julie Kardos, MD
©2016 Two Peds in a Pod® revised 1/2019
(For a laugh: we love this tongue-in-cheek post about how kids dress for cold weather).
This drives us crazy: Listed on many pediatric developmental milestone charts, there is the six month milestone, ” can hold their own bottle. ” Unfortunately, this is the last thing we want our patients to do. Babies who feed by holding their own bottle tend to suck for a longer period of time than when they are at the breast or when a parent holds the bottle. Prolonging the time any sweet substance, whether breast milk, cow’s milk, or watered down juice is in the mouth can produce cavities. Even in toothless babies, the sugar can seep through gums and rot the teeth producing cavities called “bottle rot” in the two front teeth. As shown above, sucking on a sippy cup constantly can also produce the characteristic damaging pattern and cause rotten teeth.
Sippy cups are like daytime bottles. In the “old days” if a child wanted a drink, the parent would give him a cup, he would take his drink, and then the cup would be put away so it would not spill. Sippy cups are easier to leave around for kids to grab when they need it. They are easy for kids to carry and graze from while playing. They don’t make a mess in the car. But because kids can nurse a sugar-containing drink all day, it becomes easy for a sweet drink to have constant contact with teeth, thus producing the problem you can see in our photo.
How to prevent rotten teeth:
Some final food for thought: snacks of pouch-pureed fruits and vegetables are increasing in popularity. We don’t think we need to wait for a scientific study to say that prolonged sucking on a packet of “healthy” fruit puree will probably result in the kind of teeth pictured above .
For more tips check out the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.
Julie Kardos, MD and Naline Lai, MD
©2016 Two Peds in a Pod®
One way to cool off your toddler.
Time-out is over and your 18-month-old is still flailing on the floor in a full blown temper tantrum, pig-tails flying and tears streaming down her face. Will her tantrum ever stop?
“Time out is over,” you say, trying to console her, but she continues to cry. She cries so long she forgets why she started.
Questions: Why does that child run into the road? Why does that child hit other kids?
Answer: Because no one ever taught him not to.
Toddlers need lots of teaching, so where do you start? To help teach your on-the-move, act-first-and-ignore-the-consequences toddler how to become more civilized, first make sure BOTH parents agree on the rules. Teach your toddler that you mean what you say. When you call your toddler and he does not come right away, GO TO HIM AND LEAD HIM BY THE HAND OR PICK HIM UP no matter what the situation. Also remember that civilizing a toddler is a work in progress, not an afternoon project.
These are negative behaviors we want to train out of our toddlers: hitting, kicking, biting, pinching, and in any way inflicting pain on others. Excitement and anger are normal reactions in toddlers, but these negative responses to excitement or anger are always unacceptable.
Before we go further let’s review normal toddler behavior. These are things that you just can’t punish a toddler for, but rather you can try to capture on camera and to enjoy the memory later:
How to discipline:
Catch ’em being good. This works wonders if you are consistent about it. Be specific about your praise. Tell your toddler, “I like how you are not hitting your brother right now,” or “Good job playing quietly while your baby sister naps,” or “Great job putting the legos away in the box!” instead of “You are being good now.”
Teach consequences: If he throws a toy, say “NO throwing that toy,” and take the toy away for a minute or two to make your point.
Chastise the behavior, not the child. Say to your child “No hitting,” not “You are bad for hitting.”
First make it clear that a behavior is not acceptable. Toddlers are not mind readers. If you never told her, “Don’t rummage through the garbage can,” she will not know better.
Parents need to be on the same page. Discuss in advance, not in front of your child, what the consequences are for misbehavior. If one parent”gives in” to a tantrum and one does not, your toddler will become confused, then anxious, and then learn how to pit parents against each other. He will throw longer, louder, more destructive tantrums because he knows, if he hangs on long enough, ONE person will give him what he wants.
Have immediate consequences. Avoid “Wait until your mom gets home.” Also avoid “When we get home from the store, you are in trouble.” As determined as they can get, toddlers also paradoxicaly have the attention span and memory of a flea. However, in order to give an appropriate, immediate consequence, plan your consequence before you need it or else you may give out one that you regret.
For example, if you and your toddler are having a fine time at the playground with other parents and their toddlers, you may regret this warning: “Stop hitting Billy with your toy car or we will leave the playground.” If your child ignores you, then you are stuck leaving the playground. And leave, you must! If you fail to heed your own warning, your toddler will learn that you do not mean what you say. He will see you as a wimp and will always try to take advantage of you. A better way to stop your kid is to say, “Stop hitting Billy with your toy car or I take that car away from you.” Then take it away if he continues the behavior. Here are the benefits:
1-Teach your child that you mean what you say.
2- Protect others from your toddler’s dangerous behavior.
3- Preserve your own sanity. Why should you have to miss out on talking to other mommies while enjoying the day with your toddler? Sure, your toddler may tantrum in response to his lost car, but after the tantrum your toddler and you can continue to have fun at the park.
Don’t nag. Toddlers are professionals at ignoring parental nagging. Just follow through on your consequence for failure to obey you.
Ignore whining. Whining is very hard to stop once you allow your toddler to get what he wants when he whines. Instead, ignore his whining and nagging (just as your toddler does so easily and naturally when you do it to him). Only grant him your attention when he uses his regular voice. Tell him once: “I can’t understand when you talk that way. I only understand your Joey (insert your child’s name here) voice.” Then ignore him until he uses his “regular” voice.
Catch teachable moments. If you see another toddler misbehaving OR behaving well, point out the behavior to your toddler. You could say, “Oh, she hit her sister. I am so glad you are not hitting now. You know that our rule is No Hitting!” Also use books to point out desirable behavior. Plenty of books that you read to your children have examples of children having fun together or working toward a goal together without hitting, biting, or kicking each other. Point that out!
Time out and its permutations:
Time-out is a consequence. The goal of time-out is to stop the undesirable behavior and to give negative associations to the bad behavior.
The traditional way of giving a Time-out in response to an aggressive or otherwise inappropriate behavior is to place your child in a chair or stool or on the floor in a corner or other quiet, boring place in the house for one minute per age of the child. Try not to use a spot which is associated with relaxation and sleep such as his crib.
Time-out is more of a mental place than a physical place. Years ago when I was out with Dr. Lai and our kids, her then 18-month-old hit her 3-year-old sister. Dr. Lai firmly told her 18 month old, “NO hitting, Mommy is not talking to you for one minute!” and she turned her back and folded her arms, making it a point of not looking at her daughter (Of course I was there to make sure her 18- month-old didn’t run into trouble). Her 18-month-old had a tantrum but she got the message.
My own twins were a handful- often they would bite or hit each other over a toy that they both wanted. Rather than attempting to put two twins in two Time-Out chairs, I put the TOY in time-out on top of the refrigerator, where they could see it but not reach it, for the number of minutes of my twins’ age. Yes, I had to endure a double tantrum but the undesirable behavior, namely the hitting, stopped. Over time they learned to think twice about hurting each other. Read more about twin toddler discipline tips here.
Teaching self-calming is different from disciplining misbehavior/unsafe activities.
Your kids may throw tantrums often in response to your discipline. This is perfectly fair. Toddlers are allowed to feel frustrated and angry (“If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands; if you’re angry and you know it throw a fit!”). Just ignore the tantrum and remove any breakables from the line of fire. The goal is for your child to have a bad feeling about making a bad choice. If she has a tantrum, she may later remember that if she throws a toy at someone, it will be removed from her and She Will Feel Bad about it. We will give you more tips about helping to stop an endless tantrum in our next post. Remember, though, that once time out is over, it is over. Move on and don’t continue to talk about the incident.
We do not recommend hitting your toddler as punishment or as a way to stop them from some undesirable behavior. Toddlers mirror your behavior. They will pretend to swipe a smart phone. They will blow kisses back to you. Toddlers will suddenly will start spewing inappropriate words because they hear their parents using those words. So, be on your best behavior. If you hit your child, you will model hitting as a proper response for anger. Try not to hit your child even in jest. You don’t want to be explaining to other parents on the playground that your hitting child “doesn’t know better.”
Be aware it will feel like you are reiterating the same teaching points endlessly You will often feel you are talking to yourself. Even though you told a toddler once not to rummage through a garbage can, you’ll have to repeat the instructions the next time you see a different garbage can. As my brother-in-law says,”You don’t ever stop. Kinda like practicing layups or free throws in basketball.”
Remember to take a deep breath: It is easy to lose control of yourself when you spend a lot of time with a toddler because toddlers, even though they are all adorable, can be infuriating, unreasonable, and irrational. Remember who is two and who is thirty-two. You NEED to be in control. If not, give yourself a timeout.
If you find a day with your toddler particularly tough, just do what melted my heart when my boys were toddlers. When asked, “Who will you marry?” they would always say “YOU, Mom.”
Julie Kardos, MD and Naline Lai, MD
©2015 Two Peds in a Pod®
Based on our original 2009 podcast about toddler discipline- you can listen to it here.