Questions tagged [discipline]
How to enforce the rules you set, and consequences when those rules are broken. Use [behavior] for questions about why children act the way they do.
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How can we discipline a strong-willed, misbehaving 5 year-old?
My 5 year old son receives and fears punishment but repeatedly exhibits the same unacceptable behaviors. He's always been strong-willed, and is usually the kind to view a statement like "Don't do ...
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How can you deal with tantrums without spanking?
My son just turned 2, and he started throwing more tantrums on us.
He doesn't eat well or drink enough milk ... and he is becoming more adamant and says "No" more often. If we force him to drink milk,...
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Is bribing children with cash incentives a good idea?
I pay my 5.5-year-old $1 if she sleeps in her own bed and take $1 in rent when she sleeps in our bed.
I've also taken to offering her $1 to pick up her 2.5-year-old brother's Lego messes.
Good or ...
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When is physical punishment appropriate?
In what instances do you feel that striking your child is the most appropriate course of action?
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How should I conduct a proper timeout?
This is not a question about whether or not to use timeouts. I am prepared to have that discussion, but not on this question. I believe they have their place in a parent's arsenal, and I also accept ...
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Is punishment necessary?
I'm a young parent, and still have a lot to learn, but I have been wondering a lot about whether punishment needs to be a part of parenting. Maybe I'm being too optimistic here, but are there any ...
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How can we discipline our toddler?
TL;DR version: Toddler doesn't understand disciplining. Help needed.
At 22 months, our toddler is incredibly active and always has been. He's also mostly very well-behaved, especially when being ...
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How can I get my 4.5-year-old to stay in bed at bedtime?
Lately my 4.5-year-old son has started getting back up after bed time.
Frequently we will go through the entire bedtime ritual, including a bath, pajamas, brushing teeth, books, and then being tucked ...
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What do we do when timeouts are not effective?
We have a three year old toddler, and he has just seemed to realize that timeouts are nothing more than him sitting in a corner for a few minutes. He has recently started doing a whole suite of bad ...
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How to prevent children from sucking their thumb?
My 4-years-old daughter still sucks her thumb while sleeping.
How can help her stopping this habit?
I have tried to give her a pacifier, but she refuses it.
She does not have this habit during the ...
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How to deal with tantrums in an 8-year-old child?
We have three boys aged 4, 8 and 10. The youngest and eldest seem to be fine and no issues, but the middle child is quite willful and having tantrums. It's like he never quite grew out of the terrible ...
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How can we get our 5-year-old son to control his temper and behave?
Our youngest of 2 sons is 5 years old and demonstrating really bad behaviour. This has been on going for 2 years. He has just started primary one and is a march birthday, so one of the oldest in his ...
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How to respond if my child is picked on by other children?
What can I do if other children pick on my children? Obviously I can't perform any disciplinary actions. Reprimanding might make my child look like a "mama's boy" and doing nothing might look like a ...
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What are some suggestions for punishing a child? [closed]
My daughters are clearly pushing the boundaries lately. They are trying to find out what is possible. I am really looking into ways to setting the boundaries. A friend recently suggested creating a ...
user35
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How do you handle poor behavior by other people's children?
I believe that interacting with a variety of other children at social functions is an important part of childhood development. However, there seem to be a lot of children who are... how shall I ...
user420
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How do I motivate my 8-year-old to practice the piano regularly?
I end up offering TV time as a reward but he complains so much while practicing, tracks time by calling out every 2 minutes, and practices without respecting the piano or the music (bangs it out). He ...
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How do you stop a child from using bad language and profanity?
My child has started to use swear words. This is shocking because he is using words that we don't use. I'm not sure how to react! How do I get this to stop?
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How do I deal with a child that refuses to do a chore or task?
How do I deal with 7 year old kid who refuses to do a chore or task? He's not listening and ignores my request.
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How can I motivate my child who doesn't care about rewards?
My son is 8 and has always been argumentative and basically lazy with doing ANYTHING since he could talk.
If he has homework that takes ten minutes, he will take two hours due to just leaving the ...
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Toddler putting small stones in her mouth thinking it's funny
My 1.5-year-old has recently started putting small stones (the size of hazelnuts) in her mouth when we are outdoors, which of course can be very dangerous.
I have tried everything I could think of ...
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What to do about 1 year old boy who keeps pulling hard at his penis and scrotum?
This has been going on a little while and the health visitor says its normal but we are a bit concerned about the force our child is using when he pulls at his penis: He really yanks it and it looks ...
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How do you respond to a teenager who has started to smoke?
How can you best handle this? Coming off as too strong and authoritative might invite "rebellion". Too lenient makes it seem okay.
What is the best response for driving home the dangers and risks ...
user420
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How do you handle a toddler that refuses to say 'sorry'?
My two-year-old son is generally exceptionally well-behaved and polite.
He was saying "please" and "thank you" at a very early age, and would apologize if he had problems sharing or accidentally hurt ...
user420
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Is the "1 2 3 Magic" strategy for disciplining effective?
Has anyone had experience with the discipline strategies put forth in the book "1 2 3 Magic" by Thomas W Phelan?
"1-2-3 Magic" involves counting your child for bad behavior. For example, your child ...
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How to deal with the child when both the parents are not on the same page?
The kid will soon grow up to the age when she'll need to be disciplined.
My husband and I are NOT on the same page regarding disciplining the child.
I think if the kid cries because one parent has ...
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What do I do when I walk into a room with a broken item and both children shrug their shoulders and say "Wasn't me"?
I'm trying to get my kids to be honest and take responsibility.
I'm seeing a repeated pattern where one or both of my kids will lie to get out of trouble. They're starting to see that they can deny ...
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How to break the cycle of lies?
My six year-old son has recently started lying almost constantly. This is somewhat puzzling to us, because:
He almost never gets away with it. Fortunately for us, he isn't very good at it yet, but ...
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Help! My 7 year old won't go to bed early, or get up early
This is a struggle every night, and every morning.
We start around 7:30-8:00 PM..."shower time" and the struggle starts. She's got school the next morning and I'm trying to get her showered, and ...
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When my kids don't get along; what are some options besides punishment that can be effective beyond 5 minutes?
I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. Sometimes my kids get along great, but like most sometimes they clash. I've been trying to work on substitutions to my usual model of rewards and ...
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How strict should we be with our 14-month-old boy?
Our baby is really sweet :)
Generally can be considered as a good / easy going baby. There are times though, when he gets totally out of control.
I've had a discussion with a child-psychologist who ...
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What should be done when your child wakes up from a nap and is extremely irritable?
We have a daughter who takes naps and (usually) wakes up extremely cranky and irritable. She is 1 month away from being 3. Because she is so irritable, she'll usually cry when she wakes up. Depending ...
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How do you get a three year old to do... anything?
Get dressed, get undressed, wash their hands after using the toilet, brush their teeth, go to bed, get out of bed, stop jumping on their baby sibling, go to childcare, leave childcare, start moving, ...
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What to do about my 3.5-year-old daughter's tantrums, which have worsened?
My daughter has not really had many full-blown tantrums when she was younger, ever. But now at 3.5 years old, almost 4 years old (on 8/27). She has been having the worst tantrums ever. First, she used ...
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Dealing with "breaking the rules"
So we have 2 young boys, aged 8 and 6. The 8 year old is very smart for his age, he's intuitive, figures out how things work, and knows how to get what he wants. The 6 year old however is more ...
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Discipline for a 3 and 5 year old
I am a step-mother to two children.
They obviously come from a split family. This past year that the Father and I have been together, and court proceedings for custody continue, we have noticed huge ...
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Enforcing minority languages at home
We're a bilingual household in a country that speaks a third language. I speak Finnish to the kids, my wife speaks Japanese, and I speak Japanese with her.
Our older son recently started going to ...
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How to deal with toddler discipline and tantrums
Obviously toddlers have different behaviours so this is not an easy one size fits all question. So I am asking generically as opposed to specifically.
Today I had to discipline my toddler for a very ...
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Constipation and not eating while holding back poo. How can we help our son?
Our son is going to be 3 years old. Lately, he had constipation and he doesn't eat much. Now he holds back his stool because he had a rash, but now it is really hard for us to make him poo as he cries ...
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My 6 year old son does not listen when I tell him to stop something immediately. Should I beat him?
At times when I ask my son to stop doing something immediately he does not stop. Should I beat him in that case? I know the answer might be no but I need an alternative in which he listens and stops ...
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My 16 year old daughter got a speeding ticket
About 3 weeks ago, my 16-year-old daughter got a speeding ticket for doing 46mph (74 km/h) in a 20mph (33 km/h) zone. (No, it's not a typo.)
She was coming home after school with no place to be ...
user29389
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What are the legal, emotional, and/or behavioral repercussions of confiscating money as a punishment?
Let's assume I'm a parent and that I use this punishment, for the sake of the question.
The primary punishment I use to discipline my children is to confiscate money. It seems fairly effective in ...
user24977
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How do you handle unsupervised, poorly behaved children in public play areas?
This is closely related to this question. However, that primarily deals with interactions at relatively controlled, private functions. This question is more focused on the feeding-frenzy style chaos ...
user420
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Reasoning vs "because I say so"
Raising our two-year-old, my wife and I have slightly different views on how to get our child to obey instructions, such as "get in the car seat" and "put on your shirt."
One of us feels that it is ...
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How can I get my 4 year old to clean up toys without a battle?
Multiple times during the day, we have our 4 year old take a break from playing to clean up her toys. It's a huge battle every time. Usually, she ends up on the ground saying that there are too many ...
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9 year old son brought a toy gun to school – how can we get him to understand this isn't just about bringing a toy to school?
My well behaved, bright, popular, naive 9 year old son brought a plastic toy revolver (the kind with the bright orange barrel to indicate that it's a toy) to school yesterday. He snuck it into his ...
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Why do kids always do things which we tell them NOT to do?
This is the kind of behaviour which I have seen in lot of kids including mine (2 year old).
When I tell him NOT to hold a knife, he will make sure he does it. If I tell him not to spill milk on the ...
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How do you discipline someone else's child?
We have friend who is living with us and he has a 5-year old boy. The child has been disrespectful and distructive. He tore a ceiling fan down, and has been breaking stuff and writing on the walls.
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How can I stop my toddler from playing with electrical outlets and plugs?
My 2.5-year-old son has this weird fascination with electrical outlets and power bars. I tried telling him that it's dangerous (he understands and can identify dangerous objects and situations, and ...
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How to avoid corporal punishment?
I know that beating and spanking is no good, but there are situations sometimes when I'm unable to maintain control over myself.
We have two boys, one's five and the other's two.
Due to their age ...
user54
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How to stop my preschooler from constantly running away
We have a very active 4-year-old. She has a will of her own though with what she wants to do, and there's one thing in particular that I find I don't know what to do: she's constantly running away.
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