I am a mother of an inquisitive 15 month old. She is in the stage where she has to touch everything. We are of course teaching her to not touch light sockets, cat food, dog food, and all other major things. She does other things she is not supposed to do. We have been using a loud no and moving her away from what she should not be touching. She will whimper and be upset for about 10 seconds and then go right back to it. How do you make it stick? We have given her a lot of space and freedom but some things she just cannot do or touch. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.
I thank you for your responses. I would like to make clear that I do not scream or yell at my child. She is extremely smart and talks a lot for her age. She is polite and will ask for things and say please and then respond with a thank you. We just need to work on her listening to "no". We try not to use the word "no" for everything just the big things. We will just stay consistent and she will get the point.
I have heard that the only way to keep them from going back to doing the same thing is to give them another option...refocus her and redirect her to another activity and she should forget all about the other one. Good luck!
I think kids get desensitized to "no" very quickly. At 15 mos, she might respond better to distraction if she gets into things. I would also eliminate as many things for her to get into as possible. Your daughter could very easily not be making the connection between the action and your reaction or she could be forgetting you just told her "no". Now that my youngest is almost two, it is easier for me to give a reason that she can comprehend instead of just saying "no". I can tell her that certain things break or can get hurt or other things might hurt her. Your daughter is learning all about her world. Instead of stopping her inquisitiveness with a firm "no", teach her why she needs to avoid whatever the "it" may be.
There are more dire situations that I use the word "danger" very firmly, like straying into the street, touching cleaning supplies or messing with things that might cause harm. But, I always follow up with a reason they can comprehend so they know why it is dangerous.
The thing I have been doing since my son turned 1 and he is more mobile in walking we put outlet covers over the outlets, when the dog doesnt eat her food in the AM I put it up and give it back to her at dinnertime, just so my son doesnt eat it, which already happened once, caught him with a piece of dogfood in his mouth. We have a seperate counter for the cats food cuz the dog would eat it we leave it out all the time for the cat.
I am constantly telling my son NO when he touches something or gets into something he shouldnt, so I just started doing the childproofing thing, put covers over the knobs of the stove, put locks on the cabinets and drawers.
I guess what ya can do is tell her NO then pull her away and give her a toy to play with occupy her hands and mind with something else.
Hope that helps
G.
Distract her to another activity. Give her a choice. "Do you want to play with blocks or baby dolls?"
Instead of telling her "no" frequently, just try childproofing better so that the things which are dangerous to her are out of reach. Put covers over your electric sockets, put things you don't want her to touch up higher, and place her toys, books, etc at a lower level and within her reach. We had to put away our coffee table in storage with our daughter because we didn't want her bumping and hitting herself on it. Our living room looked somewhat strange and bare, but it was worth the sacrifice for the happiness of our whole family. We didn't have to tell her "no" all the time, and she had the freedom to explore.
I completely understand...our son just turned 15 months, so we are going through the same thing. It is exasperating repeating 'no' all the time, but try to remember that they have a hard time remembering things. You have to repeat something over and over and over before they will remember. There are so many neat new things to experience, and their brains have a lot of information to process. Plus, toddlers just love touching things. They haven't yet developed the impulse control to not touch something they know they aren't supposed to touch. Your daughter no doubt knows what 'no' means, she just can't control her urges to touch things...yet. We just keep repeating no and our son eventually gets it. And yes, he cries when he can't have his way, and will try to go back to the same thing 10 seconds later. Repetition, repetition, repetition....
I would have to say "childproof". She is still young enough that she doesn't know what she can and cannot touch. Children learn through repitition; sorry to say this, you are just gonna have to keep on what you are doing. Just proof your home a little better. Get down on your knees and find things from her point of view... you two just might have fun. Then you can say "HA Kid, I fixed your wagon." Then you can get the pleasure of the cute little confused or peeved look on her face. My daughter is quite inquizitive too, drives me batty sometimes. Good luck and God Bless.
Hi,
When she is interested in something you don't want her to touch have you tried giving her a couple of other choices of things to do? Like giving her a toy to play with and removing her from the no no item. My baby is 10 mos and she is starting to get into stuff too. Good luck.
With 10 children you can only imagine how many times I have said no. It all depends on the child's personality on how well that works. little ones mimmic our behavior and want to do what they "see" us do. Our two yr old listens quite well. If we use a subtle voice without raising it, but keep it stern he listens. Sometimes you just have to redirect and find something else to get their attention. Best of luck.
-D.
15 month olds are just this way. It will take some time before "NO" sticks. I know it gets frustrating, but just try to be consistent and she will get it sooner or later. You might look up child development type information on the internet so you can better understand what to expect from your daughter.
I have a three year old and 19 month old. I often think "was Abe (the older one) ever this difficult?" Well, yes he was, but thankfully you tend to forget about it. Some days I feel like it will be forever before I don't have to chase Isaac around the house telling him not to climb the chair, or hit the dog, or bang on the window, or touch the potty...You get the picture.
Just keep in mind that this period really does go by fast, too fast.
Hi J.,
Ah yes, I DO understand! I also have a very, very inquisitive 15-month-old (son).
I definitely don't yell, "NO" anymore - all it does is raise my blood pressure. I'm not implying you are yelling... I'm just saying I stopped doing that pretty quickly, as I'm 7 mos pregnant & it just stressed me out. I do use a certain tone of voice, though.
Sometimes I'll say his name in an ominous tone so he'll look at me. Then I'll just shake my head "no". He knows what that means. Sometimes it works great, sometimes not at all. You know how kids are at this age! LOL!
If he's really intrigued by something I don't want him to get in to I've found that redirecting him is the best way to go. If I just say "no" he just goes right back to it. Sometimes the redirection involves having to play in another room altogether to get his mind off of that undesirable thing.
I guess it's just a matter of hanging in there and hoping that eventually they'll have enough understanding for it to "stick" - at least I hope so! :-)
Good luck!
J.
I always liked to use the words "ut oh" when my kids were like that and it seemed like they paid more attention and I never had to go through the phase of them repeating "no" for everything.
Try to explain that these things are dangerous "ouch". Then try to get her attention on somehting else so she will forget about the dangerous things.
L.
