The “Enjoying Your Toddler” class was very interesting. The two main points for me were:

1. How you talk to your child – Language is very important. If you as a parent say, “Stop doing that!” The child thinks, “What is that?”, or the parent might say, “Stop touching that!”, and again, what is that to the child. So the tip here is to say, “Stop touching the DVD Player/Computer”, make sure that what you are referring to is named.  This way there is no confusion on what it is the child should stop doing.This I do, however the girls seem to keep on going back and doing it anyway. I was asked what I do to try and stop this behaviour. I end up having to remove the child from what I don’t want them to do, and this happens repeatedly. Hope to get other ideas on how to deal with determined children and this behaviour.
2. We did one exercise where one of us stood on a chair and held the hand of the other who was kneeling to pretend that they were the toddler/child. This was to mimic the way we treat kids when we have to quickly get to the shops and other outings. Only after 2mins or less my arm was hurting and I can imagine that it is a scary view of your parent if they are angry. It was brought to my attention very quickly that trying to be at their level is very important. I do this quite often and try and make sure that I knell down to explain things and to have chats and just be with each of my girls. However this cannot happen when you are out and about, holding hands when crossing the road or on the footpath, trying to hold your hand bag and other items.

Although I felt that I do the things mentioned, it is good to remember to always try to be at the child’s level, and to put things in a context that a child can understand.   Kids are not adults and as mentioned today, it is like they are from a different planet learning our ways as new members of our society.

Do you find that you seem to do everything right, and still you don’t get the outcome that you had hoped?  I am keen to see what next week will bring, as it deals with discipline.  What are your techniques to explain things to a child or tell them not to do something?

Just an example, last Christmas my mother told Julia that she had a nice sun dress. She looked puzzled and said “This is not a sun dress! It does not have a sun on it!” Yes she was right it did not have a sun on the dress. My girls and I suppose others kids take things so literally. We might call it a sun dress but it might be called something else entirely by the child.   This example shows how what you say to a child can be misunderstood or just lost. Choosing how you explain things and what you say can help fix some issues. I am keen to see how it will help in our household.