The Good Behaviour Book: How to have a better-behaved child from birth to age ten

• Keep sliding glass doors closed or locked.

• Place stickers at toddler eye level on glass doors.

• Lock windows.

• Shorten the cords on curtains and blinds to get them up out of children’s reach.

• Use netting to enclose the rails on balconies so that your baby can’t squeeze through.

Miscellaneous:

• Don’t forget the garage, with paint thinners, antifreeze, gardening tools, supplies, insecticides, and other hazards.

• Use a safety gate at the top and bottom of stairs, especially if they are steep and unpadded. Some parents choose instead, if their stairs are carpeted and not too steep, to let the baby learn to crawl up and back down and keep a close eye on the ungated stairs for the few weeks it takes baby to learn.

• You can move an adjustable safety gate from doorway to doorway to keep your child away from temptation when you can’t be right on his heels to supervise. Being able to block off the kitchen, for example, can save a lot of wear on mum and dad – you may not want the saucepan cupboard emptied at every opportunity. It’s safe, but sometimes mum can only take so much.

Once you have the “don’t-touch” items out of the way, consider positive steps you can take to encourage good behaviour in your toddler. Give him his own drawer in the kitchen, filled with interesting items to pull out, sort, and study, things like measuring spoons, plastic dishes, a potato masher. Provide things of his own around the house that he can push, pull, turn, and manipulate. Give him a safe outlet for climbing. Let him experiment with pouring water in a saucepan outside or in a bath, or at the sink under your supervision. Uncooked rice or oatmeal are easy-to-clean-up indoor substitutes for pouring sand.

Placing child-sized furniture around the house encourages the busy toddler to sit still longer and “work” at her own special table. A step stool will help her reach the kitchen sink for hand washing, tooth brushing, and for “helping” in the kitchen.

Toddlerhood is an exciting time in a child’s life. It can be great fun just to watch your little one play. Being observant will also help you know when to step in and help out and when to let your child work out a problem on his own. A safe environment allows him to do this.

Organize your day to fit your child. It’s easier to shuffle your daily schedule around a bit than to change the temperament of your toddler. Do not set yourself up for impossible struggles. You know your own child best, and you will learn by trial and error what works. Try these tips:

• Use wisdom when shopping. When you shop with a toddler, be sure you are both well rested, well fed, and be ready with a nutritious snack to keep his mind off the cereal boxes, lettuce, and egg cartons. Be prepared to have it take twice as long – take your baby sling along, let baby ride in the trolley, have fun and a short list. If you’re in a hurry, feeling distracted, or stressed, shop without baby. (See “Supermarket Discipline” (#litres_trial_promo)).

• Plan ahead. Know your child’s up and down times of the day. Most toddlers behave best in the morning, worst in late afternoon or just before naptimes. Plan outings during what we call “easy times”. Martha finds mornings one of the easiest times of the day to get our children to fit her agenda. During “tough times” of the day, our toddlers stay at home.

• Anticipate your child’s moods. Provide snacks, lunch or supper, before he gets ravenous. Sit down to share some quiet activity before he’s so wound up he can’t fall asleep at night.

• Provide regular routines. You don’t have to be a slave to a schedule, but toddlers need predictability: breakfast first, then get dressed; put on socks and shoes, then go bye-bye; supper, quiet play, bath, brush teeth, then bedtime stories. Routines give a child a sense of mastery.

Organize your child to fit your day. While children are not machines set to behave according to the design of the parent engineer, there are simple ways to channel little minds and bodies to make your day run smoother:

• Rested mind and full tummy. If you have no choice but to take a toddler to a place where it’s difficult to be a two-year-old, plan ahead. Suppose you have a meeting with your older child’s schoolteacher at four o’clock and you have to take along your two-year-old. Encourage your child to take a one-and-a-half-to two-hour nap at one-thirty, give a snack just before leaving home, and take along some quiet but fascinating toys. Be sure your child has had sufficient attention earlier in the day. This may help him behave better while you concentrate on the meeting. Invite him to sit on your lap while you talk.

• Provide workable playtimes. Life with a toddler can seem like a roller-coaster ride unless you know what sets off the highs and the lows. Note what prompts desirable behaviour, and cut out what stirs turmoil. Some play environments foster good behaviour in your child and fewer hassles for you. Seek out the ones that work; avoid the ones that don’t. It may be a who, when, and how-many-playmates decision. Recognize who your child has the most fun with (this may not be the child of your best friend) and the time of the day he plays best. Does he play better one-on-one or beside two or three other mates? Most toddlers do best playing alongside a carefully selected playmate with a compatible temperament. Many children under three are not developmentally ready to play together cooperatively. Playgroups for toddlers work well when the mothers are willing to be present and observant, able to be involved as the toddlers learn the social “ropes”. An alternative to same-age playmates would be four-to-six-year-old playmates for your two-year-old. The older ones like playing with “babies” and they won’t end up fighting.

Eliminate high-risk toys. Plastic bats are great for solo play but a disaster in a group. Select age-and temperament-appropriate toys. An impulsive thrower needs soft toys, not metal cars that he can use as projectiles. If a toy habitually excites squabbles among playing children, shelve it. Children under three do not yet have the developmental capacity to share. (See “Sharing” (#litres_trial_promo).)

Busy the bored child. A bored child is a breeding ground for trouble. Let your child be busy with you, sometimes have things to do on his own, and sometimes play with him yourself. The fourteen-to-eighteen-month-old will need you a lot. After that, a toddler is more and more able to self-stimulate.

The bored child with a busy parent is a high-risk mismatch. An attachment-parented child who has been connected well from birth will always be able to make her own fun by age four. Until then, count on the old standby: “Want to help Mummy?” Her “help” may slow you down, but this is less time-consuming than dealing with an “unbusy” child.

going from oneness to separateness: behaviours to expect (#ulink_9d580a57-2df3-518a-8e90-94e2c00e8967)

During the last half of the first year babies begin a developmental process known as hatching. Baby realizes there is a whole wide world out there apart from mother. Throughout the second year, your baby’s understanding of himself matures from a feeling of “Mummy and me are one” to “me different from mummy” to “me” as an individual. Words like “my”, “me”, and “mine” show a struggle for identity apart from the mother. Besides an intellectual desire to be “me”, the little individual now has the motor and language skills to help him be himself. How a baby develops this concept of “me”, and how the parents discipline the behaviours that naturally go along with this “me” stage, are vital to the emotional health of the child. Child and adult psychologists believe that pleasant separation experiences in early life act as a sort of psychological vaccine against the anxiety of stressful separations that come in later childhood and adulthood.

The infant who was never connected misses the healthy “Mummy and me as one” stage. This infant will have more difficulty transitioning into the healthy “me” stage. The infant who is pushed into the “me” stage prematurely is also likely to develop a shaky self-image, leading to insecurity, withdrawal, and anger. Finally, parents who misinterpret the normal behaviours that go along with this oneness-to-separateness process are likely to have the most problems with discipline.

Certain behaviours happen along the way in the child’s journey from oneness to separateness. Some of these behaviours that help him become more independent are the very ones that may get him into trouble. By understanding why these occur and how you can help, discipline becomes easier.

Ambivalence. Baby wants and needs to separate, but she is not certain how soon or how far. Baby is constantly testing what is a comfortable distance from you. One minute she’s a clinging vine, a few minutes later she’s happily playing across the room. This requires moment-by-moment parenting decisions. Baby is up and down from floor to arms like a yo-yo. If you’re relaxed, amused, and unhurried you may hardly notice. If you’re bored, hurried, or feeling needy yourself it will drive you crazy.

Stranger anxiety. Independence has its price. Anxiety in the presence of strangers begins in the last half of the first year. This is where being connected to your baby once again pays off. The connected baby relies on parents to assess the security of a situation. In an unfamiliar social situation, baby rates strangers by your reaction. She sees strangers through your eyes. If you are anxious, baby is anxious. As the “stranger” approaches, baby will notice that you reflect an “It’s OK, there’s no need to be anxious” attitude in your body language. In the cautious mind of the baby if the stranger is OK to you, she is OK to baby. Hopefully, the “stranger” will also have enough knowledge of baby development to allow time and space for this evaluation to occur. A baby knows it is inappropriate just to barge into his personal space and will react strongly against the intrusion. The parent can act as a buffer in this situation.

Some babies are more stranger sensitive than others. When I see a new baby in my surgery, I’ve noticed that the baby often reacts to me the way the mother reacts. If the baby initially clings to the mother and the mother clings to the baby, often adding an anxious “He won’t hurt you”, she reinforces the anxiety and baby clings harder. But if mother relaxes her grip and clicks right into a happy-to-be-here dialogue with me, baby often clings less to mother and cooperates with me, sensing that I am a “mum-approved” person.

The ability to create a mental image of mother helps baby to separate from her.

Separation anxiety. The fear of separating from mother is another normal development beginning in the last half of the first year. Understanding this stage helps parents cope with separation anxiety and not inflict separation when the baby is clearly saying it would make him anxious. It used to be thought that if a mother got too attached to her baby during the first year she would spoil her baby and the baby would cling to her forever. Many people still believe this, even though attachment research has shown the opposite to be true. The babies who are the most connected early on are the ones who later separate with less anxiety.

The physical and mental presence of the connected mother during play situations acts as an anxiety regulator, giving the baby the message “It’s OK to explore.” The connected infant has such a rich storage file of mental images of his mother that he is able to take mother with him mentally even when he no longer has a visual connection to her.

When encountering a strange play situation with mother, an infant has to balance the desire to explore a novel situation against the need to remain attached to the familiar caregiver. This is why even secure infants, upon entering a strange situation, initially cling to the mother before beginning to explore. Attachment parenting helps babies develop a balance between clinging and exploring. Infants check in with mother periodically for reassurance while they explore the strange situation. Mother’s presence seems to add energy to the child’s exploration. Since the infant does not need to waste effort worrying about whether mother is there or might leave, he can use all his energy for exploring. In time he will cling less and comfortably explore the environment, increasing his distance from the maternal home base, though checking in from time to time for emotional refuelling. If you watch toddlers in play groups, you’ll notice that they periodically run over to their mother, sit on her lap, and get a reassuring cuddle or even a brief chance to nurse – an emotional pit stop before darting off again to play.

Insecurely attached babies have more difficulty developing this balance. They are likely to spend more time clinging or may withdraw from both mother and the play situation. The late British psychologist Dr John Bowlby, one of the most influential researchers of attachment theory, stated, “A child with no confidence does not trust that his attachment figures will be accessible to him when he needs them. He adopts a clinging strategy to ensure they will be available. He is uncertain of the mother’s availability, and thus is always preoccupied with it; this preoccupation hinders separation and exploration, and therefore his learning.” Attachment parenting acknowledges the developmental principle that an infant must go through a stage of healthy dependence before she can comfortably handle independence. (See related feature “Becoming Interdependent” (#ua05efc30-0cab-46ed-8cd8-cad895dff7b1).)

Some babies are more separation sensitive than others; so one of your discipline goals in the second year is to find out in what situations, how often, and how long baby can comfortably separate from you. Some infants are anxious separating from their mothers because their mothers are anxious about them separating. The healthier the connection between you and your baby the first year, the more willingly your toddler may separate from you between the second and third year.

Every baby has his own separation timetable. Around two years of age our toddlers would usually happily wave “bye-bye” to Martha if I, or a sibling, were with them for connection. By three-and-a-half our “big kids” were happy to be on their own in Sunday school; and by four, they could securely spend the night at a close friend’s house.

Tantrums. Baby’s desire to have it all gives way to the realization he can’t. His desire for bigness and power gives way to the frustration that he is not all-powerful. Tantrum behaviour is a natural by-product of the normal determination that is needed in the development of a healthy self. (See Chapter 5, “Taming Temper Tantrums” (#litres_trial_promo), for an understanding of why tantrums occur and how to help your toddler through them.) It’s important not only to structure the toddler’s environment to lessen the need for tantrums, but also to allow and support the child’s need to express feelings.

leaving a baby the right way

A highly attached, separation-sensitive baby has a hard time if mother leaves. The clue here is intuitively to know when your older baby can handle short absences (not counting the hour or so you may leave her with daddy now and then). In times past, grandmothers, aunts, even a neighbour were so intimately involved in a family’s life that baby would feel secure with one of these familiar people for three or four hours at a time. If you don’t have such a person in your life, look for a friendship you can cultivate – spend time together several times a week with another mother and child your toddler enjoys. Play and work together and be consistently in one another’s home. This mutual attachment will give you and your friend “the perfect babysitter” with a similar parenting style.

Between ages two and three a child’s inner life becomes more transparent. Feelings children cannot express in words they communicate through symbolic play, giving you a clue to what they are feeling by how they act. Mary “nurses” her doll while mummy nurses the new baby. She’s feeling like a little mummy. Jimmy pounds his teddy bear to show he’s angry when things don’t go his way.

becoming interdependent

Many child-rearing theories teach that a prime parenting goal is to get the child to be independent. This is true, but gaining independence is only part of becoming an emotionally healthy person. A child must pass through three stages:

• Dependence: “You do it for me.” The infant under one year of age is totally dependent on his parents.

• Independence: “I do it myself.” During the second year, the exploring toddler, with the encouragement of parents, learns to do many things independent of parents.

• Interdependence: “We do it.” This is the most mature stage. The child has the drive to accomplish a feat by himself but has the wisdom to ask for help to do it better. For a child to have the best chance of becoming an emotionally healthy person, she should be encouraged to mature through each of these stages gradually. Getting stuck in the dependent stage is as crippling as being forced out of it too soon. Remaining in the independent stage is frustrating. Maturing into interdependence equips children with the ability to get the most out of others, while asking the most of themselves.

Interdependence means the parent and child need each other to bring out the best in each other. Without your child challenging you as he goes through each stage, you wouldn’t develop the skills necessary to parent him. Here’s where the connected pair shines. They help each other be the best for each other.

Learning interdependence prepares a child for life, especially for relationships and work. In fact, management consultants teach the concept of inter-dependence to increase productivity. The ability to know when to seek help and how to get it is a valuable social skill that even a two-year-old can learn: “I can do it myself, but I can do it better with help.”

Throughout all stages of development a child goes from being solitary to being social, from wanting to be independent to wanting to be included. In fact, going back and forth from oneness to separateness is a lifelong social pattern among interdependent people. You want your child to be comfortable being alone and with other people, and which state predominates depends on the child’s temperament. Inter-dependence balances children who are predominantly either leaders or followers. The independent individualist may be so tied up in himself that he misses what the crowd has to offer. The dependent child is so busy following the crowd that he never gets a chance to develop leadership.

Learning to be interdependent ties in with the child learning to be responsible. When children get used to seeking help from other persons, they naturally learn to consider the effects of their behaviour on others. Truly happy and healthy persons are neither dependent nor independent; they are interdependent.