real parenting starts at 18 months.

Several months  ago, I was at the park with one of my friends who is a parent of a toddler and I was telling her how I was really enjoying this stage of parenthood. I could predict when Natallie would be tired, cranky, hungry or needed to be changed. We had passed the horrible sleepless nights of teething and she has beautiful toothy grin now. She is walking by herself now so I don’t need to hold one hand and be constantly stooped over assisting her to walk everywhere.  Yes,  my 16 month old was pretty fun and being her mom was pretty awesome. She smiled and said, “just wait until she gets to be 18 months, then that’s when the real parenting begins!” I didn’t really know what that meant but I think I am getting some good glimpses of what the toddler years to come. Natallie will be 18 months old the end of January and up until this point, being a good parent consisted solely of nurturing and protecting.  But now I see that being a good parent also requires this thing called discipline.

Meal time is going to be our first obstacle of figuring how to get Natallie to stop throwing her spoon, her fork, her bottle , her plate and all her food on our poor kitchen floor. We have tried ignoring it and then making her pick it up and clean the mess she made. Ironically, Natallie really enjoys cleaning up a big mess and is giddy with glee when I make her mop up all the spilled milk. In fact, she will purposely turn her bottle upside down to spill the milk and then ask for a towel so she can mop it up. So clearly, cleaning up the mess isn’t going to be a very effective punishment.  Simon thinks that once she throws the food or the utensil, we should just not give it back to her and if she throws her meal before she’s eaten enough she should just go to bed hungrier than usual. I’m not sure if cognitively at almost 18 months old if Natallie will know that she didn’t get all her supper because she threw it. 

happy because she is making a colossal mess

sad because she threw everything off the table and didn't get it back

 

It’s funny because I thought discipline would come so easily to me since I am a behavior analyst. Whenever I see kids engaging in problem behavior at work, I do a functional assessment and determine the cause of the behavior. There are generally four categories or what we call “functions” of behavior: Attention, Escape, Tangible (i.e., to get something they want) or Sensory (e.g., because it feels good). And it is important to correctly “diagnose” the function of behavior before coming up with a solution or the behavior plan won’t work.  For example, if the child is engaging in problem behavior because they want to get attention, the correct response would be to ignore the behavior and teach alternative and more acceptable ways of getting your attention. If you yell, "no! don't do that!" and put up a big fuss when the function of behavior is attention, the problem will just increase because the child is getting lots of attention (e.g., exactly what they wanted).

But I don’t want to be a behavior analyst with Natallie, I just want to be her mom. I don't want to get my data sheets and start tracking her behaviors and my reactions to see if I can figure out the function of her throwing. I just want to parent with common sense  and from the heart. It's so much harder to stick to consequences when its my baby girl and not just a "client".  I can forsee the next year(s) of tantrums, time-outs and tears won't be much fun. I hate seeing Natallie break out in big gasping sobs.  I guess real parenting does start now….wish me luck.