Age to Start Disciplining Toddler

[Lecturer]

So, my son is 15 months old and the most rambunctious and adorable child I've ever known. His misbehaviour is cute, hilarious, but also worrisome.

He never stops. He is always on the move. You just can't get him to sit still unless he's doing something like eating, drinking, or being read to (while grabbing the book). He is enormously strong for his 23lbs.. able to carry around my 5lb barbells, and push large furniture (coffee table). He is also remarkably adventurous.

He loves climbing. He climbs everything from furniture to people. For months he has known to manipulate objects, such as toys, to allow him to climb on taller things. The most recent scare was when my wife came down our stairs to see my son half-way up them, on the outside of the railing. The stairs are blocked off obviously, but he found a way to scale them using the tiny little ledges on the sides of each stair and holding on to the vertical struts of the railing. He navigated the curve and everything.. it was quite impressive... but also frightening - his feet were at least 4 feet off the ground, and he could have fallen so easily onto hard ceramic flooring.

We have since made this impossible by blocking the first several stairs using sheets of cardboard. I've also done plenty of other baby-proofing, including mounting our large LCD tv on the wall (he LOVED grabbing at that). While I feel he is safe.. my concern is really about him developing into a difficult to control little boy.

My wife and I have no problem administering discipline. We (I especially) have near limitless patience and emotional control. My research has shown that most people don't start discipline until 18 months or later. The big issue is the child's comprehension of "no". My son seems to not understand it.. although he is quite clever, often surprising us with other things he can do. He knows all his body parts (even differentiating teeth, tongue, lips, fingers, hands). He knows all the basic colours. Whether he really doesn't comprehend "no" or whether he chooses to pretend he doesn't.. I'm not sure.

At this stage, we do timeouts, but they seem quite pointless. For about 1-2 minutes, we will sit him in a chair and make him wait, while we talk to him 'sternly', telling him what he did wrong (his comprehension is probably nearly 0, so this is also mostly pointless). He will then run right back to it and do it again. After the 3rd or 4th time, we have to use the distraction method and get him interested in something else.

Other misbehaviour includes random screaming, which can be a problem in public. It's not screaming out of anger or sadness.. just doing it for fun. For about 10 seconds or longer, he'll just start screaming baby talk at the top of his lungs.

The biggest thing I'm concerned of is violence. He likes to exercise his force/strength, so he's learning to smash hard things against other hard things, which makes loud noises and creates impressive results. Unfortunately, he is starting to do this against people too. Obviously he's not 'evil'.. the hitting and scratching of people is just to see what happens.. but I still want it to stop. I worry he will do it to another child.

So, is 15 months too young to expect him to learn "no" and respect boundaries/limits, despite his other comprehension abilities? I'm guessing it probably is.. but if someone thinks its not, then please indicate other disciplinary actions I can take to help him comprehend.

[Panther_Dude]

I am not qualify to answer this......but I imagine most people teach 'no' to toddler's before 2 years of age. But um...I say...I dunno, might as well teach him 'no' now. I mean, he can scale the stairs which is just impressive.

I'm getting the feeling your son is gonna be a rock climber when he grows up or something like that.

[hexaemeron]

Discipline scales as comprehension continues to evolve and develop. You start light and move into more concrete discipline. There's nothing wrong with that.

[waveseer]

For your own piece of mind I suggest taking your son to a child psychologist for evaluation. Even if someone gives you the disciplinary method which will work on your son you will still be left wondering if it was the best method. A couple of visits and your mind will be put at ease.

[avman]

I think "No" is sufficient for a toddler that age. Timeouts are pretty worthless until 2 1/2 - 3 years old. Otherwise the kids just can't make the connection between their behavior and that kind of punishment. Make it a stern "No" with no smiles or sweetness. And just keep it up and keep it consistent.

As he gets older you can move on to time outs and more words to explain what he is doing wrong.

[RedDragon]

Originally Posted by Lecturer

So, is 15 months too young to expect him to learn "no" and respect boundaries/limits, despite his other comprehension abilities? I'm guessing it probably is.. but if someone thinks its not, then please indicate other disciplinary actions I can take to help him comprehend.

Well for me i started disciplining my little girl at about 1 year she is now 1year and 7 months of course u cant fully get your kids to stop at everything but i have been able to teach her what no means even though she still does it when i am not around or i am near her i only have to say no and she will stop. I did this with a stern nap time for the most dangerous of things she did which included scaling the entertainment center I really think she will be a rock climber I have never seen a kid climb so much. at the beginning i starting with a little slap on the hand and saying the word no. Not hitting so hard but enough for a little more than a high five to the back of the hand I would repeat this 2 times if she did it again I would put her straight to bed no matter what time it is. As she is getting older it only takes a time out but when she is so rambunctious you have to teach them with something they don't want to do and that's sleep. of course the older he gets and the more he does u have to change your ways. My little girl is climbing into the oven to get food on top of the stove now she gets spankings and a time out. Within 2 months of me doing this she has learned the meaning of no to the extant that anything she doesn't like she says no. some are good some are bad the one thing i like is bed time she wants her tv off if u turn it back on she says no and turns it off. I even have her saying pleas and thank you now.

It is just a matter of the way u want to handle things with your son and how much u can put up with. Now if you are a person that can listen to them cry and not cuddle them then i suggest having a nap time punishment when he is bad. for my daughter she was so wild that i would have to hold her down in bed and rock her to sleep. after a while i can just place her in bed and just leave the room she still cry's but stops after i leave if I come back in 10 min and she is still up ill ask her if she was bad and she says yes I had her if she will do what it was again and she says no and i tell her she can come out and she gets out of bed and normally is good for a while.

[Nidania]

At that age, a firm "No" is a good start, as well as removing them from the situation. I used distraction techniques as well when my two kids were that age. They want to climb over the baby gate? "No... hey, look at this tap-a-bench... how about you bring your bench into the kitchen while Mommy finishes making supper? You be my big helper!"

My kids were always brimming with energy, and needed things to do to keep busy. At least in my case, offering a few different activities that they could do was often enough to stop the offending behaviour. That, along with the stern "No!" was enough until they were old enough to understand more complex forms of discipline.

[Catdancer]

I'm glad you started this thread! I have no advice to offer, but I am getting plenty from you, OP, and all the other posters!

I have a 7 month old and we've already started using "no" at times. Right now, the stuff he gets into is cute so you cant help but laugh. His Exersaucer is beside my movie rack and it took him about 15 minutes to figure out that he could throw all the movies in the floor. Its cute now, but about the 15th time, we realized that he could benefit from learning "no". lol

I think that discipline is subjective and varies with the comprehension of each individual child.

I love the advice and ways to discipline that you all have given. I cant use them now, but it wont be too much longer. lol

[FarthestEdge]

I think at 15 months, redirection is still your best option. "No" should be coupled with a "yes", as in "No- climbing stairs, but Yes stack these blocks" Give them something they CAN do instead & praise them for doing it. They are looking for adventure & stimulation as they figure out their world, so we need to guide them. Simply telling them "no" & not offering an alternative is confusing to them.

My Daycare doesn't use corrective discipline (i.e. reflection time/time outs, consequences etc.) until 2-1/2 years. I don't really remember exactly when I began using corrective discipline with my oldest, but it certainly wasn't at 15 months. My 18 month old seems a lot like yours, and while I do tell him "no" I would consider a time out at this point to be pointless at best, and potentially mildly harmful (stress, anxiety, confusion) at worst. You have to realize that you are disciplining him for behaviours YOU don't want him to do. Can he really comprehend the idea that YOU want him to behave in a specific way, for a specific reason, and that he should comply? Does he really have that capacity?

However, I don't believe there is a magic age. I do think you have to trust yourself to know your toddler well enough to know when they can connect the discipline to the action that brought rise to it in the first place....each child is unique.

But to me, a 15 month old that can comprehend that a time out is a consequence of a behaviour that YOU don't want him to engage in would be an extremely exceptional 15 month old.

[sharsachan]

we have been teaching our son [now 18 months] what is appropriate and what isn't since he was about 8 months, when he started crawling.. we try not to use 'no' because that will become their favorite word as soon as they can say it [i used to baby sit a 2 year old who said no to everything, even what she wanted like a cookie or a toy], we say things like "that doll/book/glasses/etc isn't yours, that is mommy's/sister's/jane's/etc, can you find one of your toys" or "we don't throw movies/books/etc on the floor, help mommy put these back" or "if we throw our food on the floor, we're done eating" and then you have to enforce it too.

we don't really do time outs because he just doesn't understand the correlation between that and his behavior, but if he just wont stop a certain behavior, i will put him in his room, which usually does well at distracting him from the previous action. we do say 'no!' and use light smacks on his hand for the really dangerous stuff like touching a heater or the oven or climbing up something, but for the minor stuff we use words and try to redirect him. if he makes a mess [books, movies, toys, food, whatever] he helps clean it up. then we try to pull his attention to something else.