Tuesday, August 26, 2008

No no no no no no!

When we get in social settings, my (almost) two year old, says no repeatedly to any child! If someone is following her up the stairs on the playground, she says no no no no no. If a baby is playing with a toy 10 feet away from her, she says no no no no no. Most of the time, the other child is not playing with something that is even hers! It drives me bananas. I have taken this word completely out of my vocabulary, but the problem still exists. Is this a time-out worthy behavior? We give time-outs for other things and they are effective, but I don't know if I am up to giving time-outs like when we are at library storytime and she's saying no to the other kids under the parachute. But is that what I need to do? Do I punish her by taking her away from the fun activity and then have to watch twenty other moms stare at me as I drag a screaming toddler out of the room? HELP!

4 comments:

Aubreydoll said...

I don't know what the right answer is to this, but if you did do a time-out (or just left completely) she'd catch on quickly enough. Once you follow through with the consequences a couple times they get it! As long as you stick to whatever you decide to do I'm sure it'll work.

The Schacher Family said...

My personal opinion would be to just explain to her that she has no reason to say no other kids. And as annoying and frustrating as it is, it is just the age she is at. Cedric says no like that to me constantly in public. That is just how toddlers are. But they understand a lot so talking to her about it and talking about it before you get into the situation could help.

kristi said...

I think that I agree that it would probably help to remind her before you go into an activity that it is not nice to always tell the other kids no. However, like someone else said it is really hard because she is 2. But, I do think that you should redirect this behavior and if that means removing her from the activity then so be it. Just know that it will be hard to do, but I know that you can do it :)

Liz said...

I would do the prep thing like kristi suggested, talking about how we talk to other kids before we get places and tons of DRO-reinforce OTHER behavior! praise every time she talks nicely to other kids so she knows what gets rewards and what gets ignored. good luck!