Toddler Woes

Folks, I have a toddler. He'll be two at the end of next month. He's an active boy. A curious boy. A boy beginning to test the boundaries. At some point during some immense frustration I realized it was time to really start thinking about discipline. Yikes!

Let's be honest, while I'm sure there are some who exist, most of us are not discipline pros and certainly do not enjoy having to use it! You can count me among those who are not pros and really, REALLY do not like to use it. But, it's time. I have to. If I do not, I would be doing my little Jonas a great disservice.

But what do I do? How do you discipline a two year old? Time outs? Spanking? Something else? I truly believe there is no one right way. Agreed? So, if that's the case, what's going to work in our case? I will say this over and over, I think that what we do has to fit the personality (and the response) of Jonas as well as fitting Nate and I. For example, even though I hesitate to bring this up because of the controversy behind it, I've found out that spanking does not work for Jonas or for myself. He just gets more angry and I feel ugly and horrible about it. But, I know it works for others.

So, what next? I picked up a book - actually it's one that's been around the house for awhile, just never had a dire need for it until now. It's called Positive Discipline. It's been an interesting read so far. I would say that what I've gotten out of it so far is that discipline for a toddler is less about punishment and more about instruction. Okay, if that works, I'm on board!

The book really promotes distraction for a 2 year old. I have tried it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails big time. That's when we get absolute tantrums. Headache creators. I ignore them the best I can, but Jonas has begun to hit me when he's really mad, and that is not something I will tolerate - hitting anyone for any reason. So, we go have a time out together. Since Nate and I have committed to trying the time out, we've had to use it twice. The first time lasted a very long time. Screaming, struggling, more hitting. Eventually he calmed down and actually almost fell asleep. I had to use it again yesterday morning. It took about 10 minutes to get 1 mintue of quiet and calm. I feel like he may be getting it. Of course, I thankfully haven't had to use it at all today, so we'll see how it goes the next time.

I suppose the time out is really working as a distraction of sorts because I am essentially trying to remove him from the situation that was causing the trouble, and insisting that he be calm instead of throwing a tantrum. I sit with him. I have no problem with that. I think I would even be okay with it if he decided that he wanted to read a book or something while we were in a "time out."

I know things will keep changing as he gets older. I know I'll have to continually try new things in the way of discipline, but if this gets me through 2, so be it.

I have quite a bit more of Positive Discipline to read, but when I finish it, I think I'll write a more thorough review.

In the mean time, anyone else read the book? Other books? Any good book suggestions? Any techniques you've found invaluable for disciplining a toddler?