Discipline and co-operation

I came across this article on Baby Center and it was really a great revelation for me!

"Your nearly-mobile, nearly-talking baby is certainly capable of understanding what "no" means, and of beginning to co-operate with adults, even (sometimes) when she doesn't actually want to. But she isn't ready to cope with adult anger when she doesn't co-operate because the reasons for the anger are beyond her understanding - it seems to her to gather out of nothing: an act of god; a thunderbolt.

Your toddler has no way of knowing that the thing she did or that just happened - milk down your clean shirt, a briefcase emptied out - was the one more minor disaster that was your "last straw". Even if she had sensed your previous tension, she would not have understood what caused it: the failed alarm call that left you late in getting up, late in getting her up, late getting off to daycare and work. She doesn't understand much about your feelings or your affairs, nor should she.

They are not yet her concern. If you scold, she may enrage you further by laughing; if you shout, she will jump and cry. If you lose your cool to a point where you actually punish her physically, shaking her, smacking her or dumping her in her cot, she will be as amazed and horrified as you would be if the family dog suddenly turned on you and took a chunk out of your leg. Until the reasons for adult anger become comprehensible, your toddler cannot learn anything useful from punishment. When the reasons do become comprehensible, she will be able to learn without punishment.

Suppose your child pulls a glass off the coffee table and breaks it. You may justify your angry scolding on the grounds that she should not have touched it because you have told her not to many times - and anyway she should have been more careful. But think a minute. She touched the glass because it was there: her vital curiosity told her to examine it and her memory and understanding are not yet good enough to tell her which things are forbidden. She broke it because her manual dexterity is not yet adequate for handling delicate things gently. So was the accident really her fault?

If the glass was really valuable, what was it doing left within her reach? She is being punished for being what she is. A baby.

Now suppose that she tips all the food out of her dish on to the freshly-washed floor. In fury you say that "she ought to know better". But ought she? A few minutes earlier you helped her to tip all the bricks out of their bag onto the floor. Is she supposed to share your ideas about the difference between food and toys? As to the clean floor, she probably watched you sloshing bubbly water over it. Is she supposed to understand that soapy water cleans things, but gravy dirties them? Once again you are being cross with her for being the age she is and for behaving as people in her age bracket are meant to behave.

Whatever other people may sometimes suggest, going gently with a baby this age cannot "spoil" her or create behaviour problems for later. In fact the more consciously you love her, and enjoy the way she loves you, the better. If you let yourselves realise and reciprocate her inexhaustible desire for smiles and hugs, it will be obvious that the last thing she wants is to displease you. It will be a long time yet before she can understand what pleases you, though. Your pleasures are not the same as hers. You don't like gravy on the floor...."

I think I really need to be more patient with P and manage my expectations. Many times, I have treated her as if she's more than a baby, but apparently, she's nowhere near. In this aspect, I have to admit hubby is ahead of me.

Hmmm, food for thought for the weekends... BBQ at my SIL's place tonight, Happy Friday!