Despite being extremely common, punishments like removing privileges, yelling or physical punishment don't actually work. Yes, it might stop the behaviour in that moment, but what you're going to notice is your toddler just does the exact same behaviour a few hours or even minutes later. The reason your toddler continues these undesirable behaviours isn't because they're naughty or they're trying to be bad. It's because they don't actually understand. Let's look at this example.
Your kids are happily playing with their favourite toys, making vroom vroom sounds as they zoom their cars across the living room floor. When, out of the blue, your toddler throws a toy car straight at their sibling's head. Naturally, you jump in and remind your toddler that we don't throw toys at people.
But before you know it, the toy car takes flight again, and this time you're frustrated and you yell, if you throw that car one more time, you don't get dessert. But sure enough, your toddler throws a car again. So that night at dinner, everyone gets dessert except your toddler.
When they see everyone else enjoying their dessert, they're really confused. And no matter how clearly you remind them that the reason they're not getting dessert is because they kept throwing the toy car earlier in the day, your toddler doesn't understand the link between these two events and why they can't have dessert, resulting in an epic tantrum. While your toddler's response might seem silly or unreasonable, it actually makes sense when you understand how young children think and learn. Toddlers are still developing their understanding of time and they are not yet able to relate past actions to present consequences.
When a toddler misbehaves, like throwing a toy at another child's face and then can't comprehend why they're not getting dessert hours later, it isn't because they're being purposely defiant or difficult. They simply cannot grasp the idea that what happened earlier in the day can have an effect on what happens later. In the mind of a toddler, the world is mostly about the here and now.
So, when they deny dessert at dinner time, they don't connect that to their behaviour earlier in the day. Rather, what they see is that throughout the dinner they've just had and up until that moment, their behaviour has been great. So they're completely blindsided when they hear that they won't be getting dessert like everyone else.
Instead of thinking about why their actions led to the punishment, they tend to focus on the punishment itself. Their train of thought usually revolves around why did mum or dad take my dessert rather than I shouldn't have thrown that toy car at my sibling. And as a result your child ends up being upset with you instead of understanding the lesson you are trying to teach.
This inability to make the connection between past actions and present consequences is why using punishment to curb toddler behaviour does not work. On the topic of punishment, it's important to say loud and clear that physical punishment is not the best method to correct a child's behaviour. When a child is subjected to physical punishment, their focus is likely to be on the fear or anger it causes, rather than on understanding what they did wrong.
This fear or anger overshadows the lesson that you want them to learn. Worse still, It might even give them the message that using force is a way to get what they want. Moreover, extensive research shows that physical punishment can lead to harmful consequences for a child's mental health and emotional well-being, such as lower self-esteem and increases in aggression and antisocial behaviour. With all forms of punishment, instead of teaching them what to do, punishment simply teaches your child to hide undesirable behaviours from you in the future.
But don't worry, I'm not saying that the answer is to do nothing at all. My good friend and clinical psychologist Isabel Turner recently opened my eyes to a much more effective way to manage these challenging situations. She explained to me that in order to effectively teach appropriate behaviour, it's crucial for your child to grasp the relationship between their actions and the subsequent consequences.
This understanding forms the basis of learning from mistakes and making better choices in the future. However, this connection needs to be made clear to them in a way that they can understand. For toddlers, this means the consequence should follow the misbehaviour as closely as possible. In other words, for toddlers, the most effective consequences are immediate and clearly related to their behaviour.
Imagine again the scenario where your toddler threw the toy car. Instead of a generic punishment like no dessert, you can apply a related consequence. If your toddler throws a toy car at their sibling, calmly say to them, Throwing cars hurts.
We'll put the cars away for now. The consequence here, the cars being put away, is quick, relevant and ties directly to the troublesome behavior. It makes sense in your toddler's world.
They now understand that when I threw the car at my sibling, my mom put it away. So if I want to play with the car, I can't throw it at anyone. This approach makes it easier for your child to understand that their actions directly lead to the consequences of the toy car being put away.
And this helps them to learn the right way to behave instead of just making them upset or confused. The focus stays on learning, not on the punishment. But implementing logical or natural consequences is only one part of the equation when it comes to managing toddler behaviours. The goal is to raise children who are emotionally balanced, able to self-regulate, are confident, resilient, have high self-esteem and are happy. That's a lot.
Even with a professional background in child development, I still wasn't prepared for the challenges that arise during toddlerhood as their brains are developing rapidly and all of the big emotions really start to kick in. Thankfully, one of my best friends also happens to be the best clinical psychologist I've ever had the pleasure of calling a colleague. So she's been on speed dial ever since we've had toddlers in the house. Whatever Izzy tells me to do, I do it because it just works so well.
Now I know not everyone has direct access to a clinical psychologist to help with their toddler behavior questions on a whim, which is why I worked on her for many months dropping little hints here and there until I found out that she was actually a good psychologist. finally convinced her to create a course that gives everyone access to the incredible concepts and strategies that have had such a positive impact on our family. And that's how our new course Happy Place came to be.
You can check it out at brightestbeginning.com forward slash happy place. The course gives you access to all of her strategies to help manage every aspect of toddler behavior. Comfortably the knowledge that you're building a secure connection with your child while teaching them how to manage and regulate their emotions without using fear. punishment or teaching them to simply hide their feelings.
The outcome being children who can self-regulate their emotions, are emotionally well-balanced, have high self-esteem and are confident, and have a great connection with you as their parents or carers. I'm so excited to share this with you. We've been secretly working on it for months and the feedback so far has been incredible. I love how it's turned out and I know it's going to be so helpful for a lot of families. So if you're interested, head on over to to brightestbeginning.com forward slash happy place for all the details.
And I hope to see you in the course.