Correcting my Son

Dad11

Hi all,

My son is 1 since Jan 31st. He has started scraping and hitting in the face. I correct him by saying "No its not nice to do this" He gets upset. My wife says he is too young to be corrected. I disagree!

Thoughts please ?

How Strange

On one hand I think you have to start as you intend to continue so you need to address inappropriate behaviour. On the other hand he's only one do I doubt he has much understand of right or wrong yet. They're really just acting on impulse at that age eithout having ant reason behind it. So perhaps it's a case of picking your battles.

I've always found distraction a much better technique that drawing too much attention to the behaviour. You can say its not nice to do that but then distract him with something else so you change his focus.

Also babies and toddlers don't differentiate between attention for good and bad behaviour. Attention is attention so if you give too much attention to his hitting or whatever he's more likely to do it again because in his mind slapping = getting lots of attention from daddy.

vitani

Could you try something milder? Like an 'ah ah' and removing his hand from your face, but not actually correcting him as such. Then distract him with something else.

wmpdd3

My son is the same, (13 months) my daughter was the same with hair pulling.

I do 'soft'.

I showed them how to lightly rub my face and the dolls face and his sisters face and show him how nice this is and I smile and show him that we like it.

I hold his hand and lightly rub his face, I say 'soft'.

He now knows what I like and what I dont like. He still scratches my face the odd time, but when I say ' No, soft, he stops and lightly rubs my face and smiles.

When he tries to slap the TV, I say 'ah ah and I put him sitting at the other side of the room. After a few weeks of this, he has got the point!

pwurple

I am surprised a child that young starts crying when you just say no. Did you shout it at him?

We do 'Gentle'. So when she hits, you stop them and do 'gentle' instead.

Distraction also works like How Strange says above.

Shouting or hitting I don't think is required, especially with a child that small.

liliq

We use distraction and 'gently' here too. Sometimes it's out of excitement that my son does it, so we say 'gently' then. If its out of frustration or anything like that, we just distract him.

aknitter

Stop it now, gently is best - they have no idea what they are doing but better sort it out now rather than later when its another child he's doing it to. The whole distraction thing didn't work for me so it was a remove him or create distance so he can't do it, followed by a 'No no' or 'ah ah'.

Start as you mean to continue and be consistent.

Dad11

I speak Gently all the time to him but when my wife says no he seems to get upset as well. I am now using the distraction and this seems to work for me. Also I like the idea of gently rubbing my face and saying soft. I will try that. I never shout at my little boy

Toots

My little man is 18 months and is the exact same, he sometimes comes up and whacks me in the face or else goes to grab my face and scrapes. It's funny because sometimes he does it because he's getting too excited but other times he does it for divilment! The thing that works for me is to lift his hands away from my face and say 'ah ah'. He's starting to get the message now and in the meantime I also make sure his nails are kept well trimmed!!

red fraggle

Dad11 wrote: »

I speak Gently all the time to him but when my wife says no he seems to get upset as well. I am now using the distraction and this seems to work for me. Also I like the idea of gently rubbing my face and saying soft. I will try that. I never shout at my little boy

my little one is the same if i say no she sometimes gets upset even though its said softly. she just understands i think and cries cos she knows im not letting her do what she wants. she nearly 15months. distraction works for me and i think im gona try the soft/gentle approach when she slaps. its uauslly when shes excited and i think she thinks its affection so i have to teach her i guess!!!

dollybird2

Ah I think all kids around the year old mark indulge in a bit of slapping/scratching/biting. I do the "nice" thing which is the same as the soft & gentle thing and it seems to be getting across. It's hard not to laugh sometimes though even though I know this will encourage the behaviour but children are so damn cute at that stage!!

IvyTheTerrible

wmpdd3 wrote: »

My son is the same, (13 months) my daughter was the same with hair pulling.

I do 'soft'.

I showed them how to lightly rub my face and the dolls face and his sisters face and show him how nice this is and I smile and show him that we like it.

I hold his hand and lightly rub his face, I say 'soft'.

He now knows what I like and what I dont like. He still scratches my face the odd time, but when I say ' No, soft, he stops and lightly rubs my face and smiles.

When he tries to slap the TV, I say 'ah ah and I put him sitting at the other side of the room. After a few weeks of this, he has got the point!

You could be talking about my 13 month old!

For the last couple of months, he has been slapping faces. He doesn't understand when we say "No" (he just laughs, he likes the attention), so what did was to say "No, caress" and to rub his hand softly on our face. And then to say "Aw that's nice!". Now, he caresses more often than he slaps, and if he does forget and start to slap, we say "Caress" and he rubs our face instead and says "Awwwww". And if we say caress, but we are not close enough, he rubs his own head or his teddy bear!

pwurple

I thought I'd put in some toddler parenting resources here...
Triple P I find good for discipline advice:

http://longford-westmeath.triplep-staypositive.net/tips/tips/overview/General-Parenting-Tips

Zero to three is another one, loads of helpful stuff here
http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/challenging-behavior/

The incredible years have another good website...

Toddler pyramid guideline is handy
http://www.incredibleyears.com/program/baby-toddler.asp

RubyGirl

I used the "nice mommy" aswell and with his hand showed him, it worked a treat.

ted1

Never to early to correct them, the amount of kids out there who don't get disicplined is crazy its very easy to spot them I the playground either pushing other kids or demanding stuff from there parents without any manners.

We used the naughty step from 11 months on

Suucee

From 11 months wow. I cant imagine that working for my 11.5 month old. I have recently started to say Ah Ah . she has started taking everything off other kids and even today in Gymboree I caught her slapping another child her age. When I said ah ah no She whinges but I just distract her with something. I might try that "gentle" approach.
I caught her trying to slap her nanny last week and her nanny laughed and when I said ah ah no her nanny said she was fine. But I did point out she might try that with a child a little older who ends up slapping her back, so hopefully nanny might correct her now too.

josip

More important than what course of action to take, is the reason that your child is doing it. Once we understand why someone is doing something, then we can make an appropriate response. Our understanding is that it is very common for children of that age to scratch, bite, hit etc, because their emotions and sense of self have started to develop in advance of their ability to express themselves and it is out of frustration that they do these things. By all means do "gentle" or "soft" but you should first try to ascertain with your child what frustrated them initially. Ask them yes, no questions that they can nod, or shake their head to. Be proactive and do activities such as painting or drawing that allows them to express themselves.