a bit more on disciplining toddler

A few weeks ago, I was at the skin clinic waiting for my appointment with my beautiful doctor (nope there's nothing wrong with my skin, it's just regular treatment for maintenance), she came in with another lady and a small little girl, later I found out that the lady is my doctor's friend and she's a teacher (well in fact her occupation has nothing to do with what I am going to share next).

The mummy and little girl got my attention immediately, because the girl was probably a year or two younger than Rynus, which means about 1.5 to 2.5 years old. She went into the clinic with a sulking face, I have no idea why but it seems that she's just not interested in that place at all. And what the mummy did next, blew me away completely. She squatted down right in front of her little girl, looked into her eyes and talked to her in an extremely firm tone, "This is not a place for you to whine and cry, so please, you know what to do. And now, it's time for you to go to toilet so stop whining and come with me." Then magically, the little girl picked up the pieces and followed her mummy to the toilet silently. Later on I heard the nurses complimenting the little girl for cleaning up the floor with tissue when she dropped some biscuit crumbs accidentally.

For a little toddler who's able to be potty trained or even to clean up the mess independently at such a young age, is definitely amazing. But what impressed me even more, is how the mummy interacts with her and disciplines her. She's been treated just like an adult and the mummy gives precise instructions in firm voice. Kids at such age are often seen carried by the parents and stuffed with snacks, toys or digital devices in a situation like this, but all this pair had, was an effective conversation followed by an appropriate action. As a mummy with young toddler, I could totally imagine how much efforts this lady has put in, in order to form such a routine with her child so that the little one knows exactly what she's expected to do. Because trust me, even though I've been practicing the same way all the time, it's no surprise that Rynus would throw himself on the floor in one pile and refuse to respond or take action when the same thing happens, sometimes.

Yes I know I mentioned he seldom throws tantrums and is a very cheerful kid, but occasionally, I do need to give him time-out when he misbehaves and refuses to admit his mistakes. Sometimes he understands what he did wrong and admit it before I send him to the thinking corner. But recently I've noticed that he knows he's at wrong and he knows I'm not accepting his behavior, but he's trying all possible means to shun away from the thinking corner. I guess maybe he's developed more self awareness and feels he deserves some dignity and respect, and facing the wall is quite a shameful act, but I strongly believe in this saying I've read recently:
"5 minutes in the corner is better than 5 years in prison. Discipline them now so I don't have to later"

We've gone through this phase with Renzo years ago and it's proven that he's grown up to be a very sensible and understanding kid who has pretty good self discipline. And self-discipline is a process that takes years to hone and refine, we shall definitely start shaping our kids' behavior with a more age-appropriate strategy from young. As Rynus is not able to read independently just yet, the educating with books method we used on Renzo might not really work for him at the moment. Instead, I'm re-introducing this "good habits" chart to depict right/wrong behaviors, coupled with the one I created using the boys' own pictures, and of course, most importantly, we need to engage in more sensitive conversations to help our little one understand and reason better.

But of course, if he has not reached the age of reason (Renzo reached that around 3 years old), then we shall just wait patiently. Which means if he reacts better while hugging his pillow or milk bottle than facing the wall, I am more than willing to let him do what makes him feel comfortable. So he could calm down and function properly again. I don't think I am being permissive by dropping all the punitive methods, but rather being firm with my knowledge that a kid's misbehavior is socially unpleasant and frustrating to him, and being kind in my method of helping him deal with it.

"When a method has really worked with children, they feel empowered and motivated to improve from an inner desire and locus of control (as opposed to control from others), and they develop skills that will help them solve problems and improve behavior."

When a method has really worked with children, they feel empowered and motivated to improve from an inner desire and locus of control (as opposed to control from others), and they develop skills that will help them solve problems and improve behavior. - See more at: http://www.positivediscipline.com/articles_teacher/PositiveTimeOut.html#sthash.GcuzDxec.dpuf

When a method has really worked with children, they feel empowered and motivated to improve from an inner desire and locus of control (as opposed to control from others), and they develop skills that will help them solve problems and improve behavior. - See more at: http://www.positivediscipline.com/articles_teacher/PositiveTimeOut.html#sthash.GcuzDxec.dpuf

their children can understand and benefit from conversations about emotions and mental states - See more at: http://www.parentingscience.com/mind-minded-parenting.html#sthash.ujjv6vkJ.dpuf

Rynus taught us to be happy everyday, for no reason...

I was browsing through some old Facebook status updates I shared back in 2011/2012 and I was shocked to realize that during that period, I seemed to grumble a lot about my life, be it work or family, and honestly I couldn't even accept that "ME" with my current state of positive mind. And interestingly, I couldn't stop attributing that change in mindset to the arrival of our little boy, Rynus Chan!

Yes since he was born, we often use the word "smiley" to describe him. I said this many times in the past that "Rynus has this amazing ability to make us happy simply by not doing anything at all!". At the age of 3 years 4 months, I see him with high emotional intelligence level as he doesn't just stay in good mood most of the time, he also has ways to influence people around him and his smile is totally contagious! Not just us, even Renzo started to laugh more with Rynus around.

I searched on Rynus' blog trying to figure out if I've mentioned anything about his tamper tantrums but nope, it seems that we are not experiencing that as often as we had when Renzo was at this age. Or maybe our experience with Renzo prepared us well in dealing with Rynus. 2 years ago I shared this post about how to stop temper tantrums before they start as I truly believe in what the author mentioned since it worked like magic for Renzo:

"Children are naturally curious. Their job, as a child, is to learn about the world and how it works. That’s what they start doing from the moment they are born. Our job is to help them. And yet sometimes I don’t think we parents give room for our children’s natural curiosity. If you can channel it into something healthy, then they’re far less likely to start screaming in Wal-Mart."

"I do believe in consistent and firm discipline, but I think if we started off, when the children are small, talking to them and really interacting with them, discipline would be much easier. And a toddler throwing a temper tantrum would be a far more rare occurrence."


So back then I was asked by other mummies if the same method works for Rynus, or if it has something to do with individual kid's character and personality. And I couldn't answer back then because Rynus was only 1+ and couldn't communicate well with us. But today, I am proud to say yes, the parenting style I used to turn Renzo to a relatively tantrum free toddler, worked great on Rynus too!

Well in fact the result is even better for Rynus' case as in general, he's not a "temper tantrum kid" by nature, so it didn't take us that many years (2 years for Renzo's case) to get him understand it's not the end of world if things do not go his way and he surely has many other alternatives. So yes once a while we do need the time out method and send him to face the wall, but most of the time, with frequent chatting such as asking him how's his day in school every night, or who is his favorite teacher or best friend, he learned to express his needs well in front of us and we also get him to understand what's our limit and boundary by taking every possible opportunity to "educate" or rather say "demonstrate" to him what kind of request is acceptable and what is not.

And most of the time we see this cheerful little one roaming around the home in really good mood. He often showers us with his random hugs and kisses, and even occasionally we both have our hands full with Renzo, like last night all 3 of us were busy playing piano together, Rynus quietly went into his room alone and played his Thomas train on the floor while waiting for us to return to the room. When I apologized to him for neglecting him, he responded with a generous smile and "It's okay Mummy!".

Of course we do have our struggles, Rynus seems to respond very well to me, but not to Daddy Chan at the moment. We are not really sure about the reason but I do think it's worth figuring out because to certain extend, Daddy Chan is the one handling Renzo most of the time and Rynus follows mummy so I probably know about his needs better. Nonetheless, with his happy-go-lucky character, Rynus has definitely made us more patient parents over the past 3 years and just thinking or talking about him together brings great smiles on our face each day!