Mamas & Papas -
Our DS (18 months), is practically obsessed with doors. He likes opening and closing them, including sliding doors, closet doors, car doors etc. He stops us during our walks and points out if someone has their car door open. He even felt it was his "civic duty" to alert a man at a parking lot that his trunk was open, by walking over, tugging on the man's pants, taking him by the hand, walking him to the back of his vehicle, and pointing to the open trunk, and insisting that it be closed.
I haven't stopped him from playing with doors as such, but just directed him to do it gently. I've been telling him that he must be careful that he can get his fingers caught in the doors, and that it will hurt him. Message hasn't sunk in though. Getting his hands caught a few times hasn't put him off, what, in his mind, is certainly the most fabulous game ever. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance,
F. B.
It's basically redirection and supervision. With time he will learn to avoid getting them caught. Until then you just prevent it. I think you are doing fine.
Busy hands you have there! I have found that kids that love doors also love keys and locks. Try buying him several large padlocks with keys, lock them up and let him have at it. This keeps my little 20 mo old entertained quite successfully, and keeps her busy little hands away from the doors and toilet lids.
You have to decide on your goal and act accordingly. If he is allowed to play with doors gently, then you have to try to enforce that (sort of gray for 18 months) and leave the risk in slamming fingers where it lies. My kids (6, 4, 2 1/2) pretty much still love slamming doors. We have a "whatever I say" policy though, so when they were younger, if I said not to touch something, no matter what, no matter why, they would be disciplined if they kept touching it to "train" them to react to my warnings. This way, if they were near a dangerous door, I could just tell them not to touch it, but if it was a safe door, I'd let them play with it. So it wasn't so much about doors as obedience. This might help so that you can let him play with some doors and not others, and he can learn that when you say "gentle" he needs to be gentle immediately (handy for pets and things too).
So if you want him to play with doors in whatever way he wants, then leave him be.
If you want him to play with only some doors, and only in a certain way, then start teach him to follow your directions with discipline. Consistency is key.
If you do not want him touching doors at all, you need to enforce that.
Natural consequences to me are not a good approach at this age, because it means unpredictable varying results to everything they try (sometimes they'll slam a finger, sometimes they won't)-and most good parents don't really let anything bad happen, so it's not very firm. It's much faster if you consistently give consistent consequences to your directions, and then you'll need discipline much less often, and you'll have less work preventing catastrophes when they react to the word "no". Then when they're older, you can let them discover results to wrong actions when they can really learn from it. 18 months is too young to comprehend "This will hurt you so you shouldn't do it".
ouch! Try teaching him to touch or push the doors only from the middle. That's what we told our son to do when he wanted to close the car door by himself.
Oh, I feel your anxiety!
When teaching in a toddler room, I had one little girl who had the same fixation....until her little fingers got crushed on accident. Horrible....
What I'm wondering is if you could replace his fixation with something fun and new for him to explore. I thinking a of a lock box toy, like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/TAG-Little-Lock-Box/dp/B00004WCFD
We found that some of our more advanced toddlers (I worked with 20-30 month olds) needed a little challenge, and I think this would be a perfect fit for your boy. As you can see, this has *doors* and offers the entertainment 'finding' something inside. I liked to put a new item in it every day. You can even make a game of sitting with him when he explores it and putting a small cracker in it for him to 'find' and eat. Perhaps if he has these safe doors for playing with, this will be a good redirection. I'd go the distraction route, first ("Doors-- oh, owie if your fingers get stuck. Here, you can play with this...").
Toddlers are exploring their world; changing their environment is often more helpful than discipline. If you have a really concerning door, I have also found that you can take a towel, fold it lengthwise a few times, and place it at the top of the door, near the hinge, the door will not close completely. This might be enough until his focus moves onto other interesting things.
Drawers.
Our little guy found drawers before doors. He smashed his fingers a couple times before he caught on. :)
We tried to keep in mind what our pediatrician said - any falls or accidents that are no higher than his body or with no more weight than his body weight - won't lead to serious injury.
So we let him learn.... And it is so funny that now, on either drawers or doors (or cabinet doors) - he straightens out his little fingers WELL in advance of the closing.
Hmmm...so my advice i guess is to let him open and close drawers for a little while. :)
Well no, not really. Keep telling him to be gentle, have him open doors you need him to or close them and just be vigilant.
MIne had a fascination with sticks, he would run with them, poke them into his sisters, hit the dog. I just had to catch him before he was naughty with them
We still have sticks, all over the place, he collects them now and fences. He is 11.
