Eliminating 'don't'

[moogie]

i've been pretty successful with not using the word no to charlie, which is great especially since she says and nods yes alot.  but Don't has crept in big time and I think its becoming an attention thing. Its hard for me to explain but i'll try.  c will go touch something because she has learnt that she gets attention for doing it.  like the laptop, she'll stare at us and go over to the laptop and start hitting the keys.  then i'll say don't   touch or not for charlie.  I don't want to say no or the variations because i don't want her to do it for the attention and i'd rather what i say not be a negative. if she's playing with another kids toy, what should i say.

One thing we've done is really focus on giving her attention when she's not doing something to get attention.  Its difficult because she gets that she gets a kind of attention for touching off limits stuff(not much is off limits and now that i'm saying this i know my responsibility is really to put the laptop out of rerach or just let her play with it), i think i  probably need to redirect her more often than say anything negative at all.

She's exploring and definately learning how we tick.  i think i'm asking a couple of questions here aren't i? now i'm confused.

[kokonutmama]

Kody does the same thing.  He'll hold his hand inside the toilet bowl and wrinkle his nose, stick out his tongue and laugh at me.  I guess my yucky face is funny to him.  I have noticed that he finds new things to do this with as time passes.  He know's he's not supposed to toucj certain things, but he has to *really* make sure before he'll give it up completly.

[mum2maddox]

we are going through the same thing megs,

maddox loves the laptop and its so hard to not just say no or dont without even thinking.

i try to explain the laptop is dada's, its important and really emphasise we might hurt it... if we play with it.  but your right it is our responsibility to ensure out of sight out of mind.

there isnt much here he cant touch but he certainly tests us on the things that definately arent for plying with.



our peadiatrician told us yesterday we should have covers fr electric outlets but he is only interested in them f there is something pluggged in hehe... so we cover them with chairs ect...

i try to not say no, dont or anything like that... but i think the best way is to just keep things out of reach and use positive statement when we need it and also try to refocus their attension onto something else.

[tristan]

I think the age DD is is a difficult age for this sort of thing. She want to explore everything but she it too young to understand why she cannot play with some things. Explaining to her really makes no difference so I think it is better to give a brief explanation and redirect and move the temptation out of sight. It works pretty well, but she does tend to remember for quite a while, so we need to keep up the distraction.

[ShannonandDel]

As some of you know, we were/are having a problem with Del and telling her what she can't do. One of our problems is that we have a very small house, so keeping stuff out of site isn't easy, because there is nowhere to put it. We have childproofed wayyyyy more than we ever intended to, because of our curious little monkey. Delaney herself was seeming to concentrate a lot more on what she wasn't allowed to do, and distracting/redirecting wouldn't always work because she was so determined to get into something.

Lately we have seemed to turn a corner. She is figuring out that even though there are a few things she can't do, there are a lot of things she can do. It is so fun to see her excited about stuff.

I think sticking to our guns when she would throw one of her little tantrums was one of the biggest helps. I would tell her that the knife (plug, soap, cat box, etc.) wasn't for her and she would throw a fit. Giving her something instead or bringing her somewhere else usually didn't work. I would just hold her in my lap and tell her that she could be upset about it but it wasn't going to change.  She is starting to really get that I am going to always say no to certain things, and she is much easier to distract. I hope I am not Jinxing the whole thing by typing this. lol.

[HanoiHelle]

This thread goes to something we are trying to do with Camilla Marie. We want to reduce the number of things that we say no to. These would be things that cannot be moved out of sight/reach, for example, the stove/oven, the water cooler/heater, etc., and things that are dangerous to little kids. The idea is to only use "no" for serious/dangerous situations, and to say something else in other cases. For example, when CM is done eating, she starts to throw her left over food on the floor. That is an annoyance, but nothing more, and nothing that would warrant any kind of punishment or even a stern voice. But, sometimes, we find ourselves saying "no, Camilla, don't do that."

My question is what to say instead of no in these situations that don't warrant a "no"? We use "not for Camilla," but that doesn't always work. We also redirect her in all situations, so it's not like there's the command to stop without redirection.

What do you do?

[kokonutmama]

I've been steering away from the specific word "no" too, though I plan on using "Halt" for dangerous situations.  That's an idea I got elsewhere, but I really like it.

As far as replacing no itself I say "whups" "ouch" "hang on" "Look, here" "uh uh" "eww" etc.
"Whups, you dropped your food on the floor."
"Ouch, it hurts grandma when you pinch her nipple."
"Hang on, bub, hold mommy's hand."
"Look, here's a paper you can rip up."
"Uh, uh, that's the Room of Doom, no Kodys allowed."
"Eww, mommy doesn't want to eat the toilet brush." 

[jnezmama02]

lol...Adrienne..that toilet brush one was too funny.    I hate to ask what the "room of doom" is...

[kokonutmama]

Only the guest room, but that's where all the Christmas stuff, my brother's overflow, random beer-making supplies and spare vacuume parts get shoved.  I try not to even open the door, I'm afraid junk will fall out and invade the rest of the house.  Aren't you glad you didn't ask?!

[HanoiHelle]

LOL, Adrienne. Good suggestions. Thanks.

[jnezmama02]

hehe...yea, we have several spaces like thatthe  loft space is like that w/ all of DH's crap...it was supposed to be our "study", but it's really just a space for DH to store all of his computer stuff he refuses to get rid of...then we have a half garage full of junk furniture and things we want to keep and then we have a bunch of stuff in our  basement. Ideally, all of this "stuff" should be in our basement...but our cats stay down there and we're afraid they'll pee on stuff that's not in plastic storage boxes. The whole basement is our "room of doom". lol!