First Parenting Tip of the week

And by parenting tip of the week I mean it's a tip for ME to apply to my world for a week. I am by no means giving out any parenting advice to ANYONE ELSE! I do abide by the golden rule of motherhood and thats don't offer advice to other parents unless they ask you for it.
With my cute faced devil child well into the terrible two's It's time for me to put a little focus on curbing some of the behavior issues Miss C has been displaying.

On to the VERY FIRST tip of the week

(Can I get a drum roll please)

How many times do we tell our children “don’t run,” “ don’t climb,” “don’t hurt,” “don’t scream” etc. to only see our child do that very thing we just told them to not do? It is very frustrating, and in your frustration you think, “Why did he do that? Didn’t I just tell him not to do it? Isn’t he listening to me?” Well, yes, you just told him and he is definitely listening, but a peculiar characteristic of toddlers is that they hear the last part of what you tell them. When you say, “Don’t run,” they only hear “run.” Yeah, who would’ve thought, but their brains are still developing.

One of the techniques we use in the Raccoon classroom is to tell the children what we want them to do instead of reinforcing what we don’t want them to do. For instance, if we want a child to not run, we tell him, “Please walk” or “Use your walking feet.” When the child is young, you probably have to first show him what “walking” or “using walking feet” is.

Toddlers are known for being masters in testing the adult’s limits and their authority. Yes, sometimes your child will choose to not listen and will run, climb, and scream because is fun. So what to do if this happens? Keep being consistent and don’t give up or give in.

Changing the way we guide our toddlers takes time and practice, but it eventually becomes an automatic response that you will even speak that way to other adults.

This Tip was written by Ms Aidee a Montessori certificated teacher