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Toddlers Testing Limits
How to Minimize Conflicts and Maximize Cooperation
By Amy Henry
Dr. Lieberman advises parents that setting firm limits will sometimes result in tantrums. "The tantrum is a complaint to being stopped, but being stopped is necessary to learn that there are behaviors that cannot be allowed," she says.
While toddlers need clear limits for their own safety and social development, the road to maturity need not be paved with misery and arguments. "Because this critical stage of development is important for a child to feel independent and develop self-confidence, being told 'no' all day long ... is not a positive thing," Dr. Brown says.
Dr. Brown advises parents to try alternative strategies for discipline to gain their toddler's cooperation. "Ignoring a behavior, redirecting, using humor to break up the intensity of the situation, time-out for serious safety issues, all reduce the need to say 'no,'" she says.
Kingsley avoids discussion when it's time to come in from play – a potential battleground. Instead, she takes her son by the hand, saying, "Let's go read a book," or "Let's go color."
Kendall Nelson, a stay-at-home mom from Atlanta, Ga., says her son, Cayman, 2, voices an adamant "No!" in many situations: hair washing, being placed in a highchair at restaurants, when it's time to come in from outside play. "But I'm the queen of diversions," Nelson says. To distract her son when he's gearing up for a fight, she keeps a bag of paper, crayons, small toys, silly putty and little books at hand.
Dr. Lieberman agrees that many power struggles can be avoided this way. "Toddlers often are delighted with a novel stimulus that distracts them from whatever it was they were doing," she says. "They don't even realize they are stopping an undesirable behavior to engage in a desirable behavior." If that fails, she suggests removing the child from the scene and offering another activity, saying, "You cannot do that, but you can do this." Then, be sure to show approval when she accepts the substitution.
