Do you want to know how to deal with bad behavior in toddlers? Well that's what we're talking about
in this video. I'm Nicholeen Peck, I've raised four children of my own, I've also taken in treatment
foster children so I've had a lot of experience and I know that if you start young with toddlers,
then you can decrease those bad behaviors. So in this video we're going to be sharing with you
some key things that you can use to conquer those negative behavior in your toddlers.
In this video, I'm going to share with you the definition of self-government because I am
the self-government lady, I teach self-government all over the world and we're going to be looking
at this problem of misbehavior through the lens of self-government and how we can teach that to
our toddlers. It is possible and then after that I'm going to be sharing with you five tips that
you can use to help your toddler overcome their misbehavior problems. So what is self-government?
Self-government is being able to determine the cause and effect of any given situation and then
possessing a knowledge of your own behaviors so that you can control them. So, what does that
mean for a toddler and is it even possible for a toddler to learn self-government? Well the answer
is yes. Now, not entirely because the prefrontal cortex of the brain is not fully developed until
a person is between the ages of 18 and 25 years old, so it's going to take a while before they
get to full self-government but they can start on the journey as soon as they can say the word okay.
So, my children actually could do a very complex skill called disagreeing appropriately
when they were two years old and there are many people all over the world who have sent me videos
of their children doing the skill disagreeing appropriately at those same very tiny toddler age
two you know moments when you would think they can't even say that many words. So, it is possible
to teach your children some of these great skills for success but the key thing is you've got to
teach them ahead of time what they need, then teach them in an environment of cause and effect
and help them come to those same principles and skills again and again so that they see
that they are true and they hold on to them. So, when they are little, we start with a lot
of teaching and sometimes the teaching is even repetitive. We have to do some of it again and
again because the prefrontal cortex is so small. So, what do we do then to help our toddlers ?
Tip number one is teaching the children the skills. So, it's so important that your
children proactively learn some of the basic skills that they need for success.
So, these children's books that I've created each teach one of the four basic skills. The four basic
skills are following instructions, accepting "no" answers in criticism, disagreeing appropriately
and accepting consequences. When a person learns these four basic skills, that takes care of 99% of
their behavior problems. So, that's huge if you can teach your children ahead of time what they need
and what toddler does not love a good story that rhymes with some beautiful pictures of children
doing things the wrong way and then learning to do them the right way. Of course, they do. Teach
them the skills, teach them how you will correct the problems when they do not use the skills and
even role play practice some of those things so that they can definitely feel confident. The one
thing we need to remember with our toddlers is they need a lot of opportunities to do things the
right way otherwise they will not put the right way into practice. Toddlers are very impulsive
so in order to stop that impulsiveness, you have to do a lot of training to counter it which means
you've got to go through these role play practices, do them in a play-like way
many, many times, that's where the stories are going to help too, right? They're going to see
other children going through the process of following instructions and accepting no
answers so that they're not yelling no back at you but they're saying okay
or disagreeing appropriately and dropping the subject and keeping a calm face, voice and body,
all of these things that they actually can do if you take the time to train them again and again
and don't get frustrated when it doesn't go right. So, let's talk about what to do when it doesn't go
right. Before I get to my next tips for you which gets into how to correct the problems instead of
the pre-teaching stuff, I'd like to know what's going on at your house so in the comments below,
tell me how old is your toddler and what types of things are they having tantrums about?
What do their behaviors look like because maybe if the behavior needs to be pointed toward another
video after this one, I can know that by seeing where you're coming from. All right so you've
got a child, a toddler and they are going out of control, they're whining, whatever, what do you do?
Do you use time out because that's what a lot of people do is they use time out for their toddlers?
But timeout gives an interesting message to the toddler. The time out seems to suggest that
the child is not able to be with other people, they have to be excluded from life or they have to be
you know cast aside until the people want to be with them again, that there's a lot of emotion
there, there's a lot of attachment issues that could occur because of that. So I'm not a big
fan of time out. I am a fan however of a calm down place. So number one with my toddlers, I'm
going to teach them how I will correct them, the words that I would use in a correction
and I'm going to give them the opportunity to earn a age-appropriate extra chore. I mean for a toddler,
it's going to be something like for your extra chore, I need you to put your shoes by the door
or for your extra chore I need you to help mommy put the crayons back in the bucket.
You know, I mean it's going to be something very simple that they can help you do but it's still
going to teach them cause and effect. Now in most circumstances I'm going to be doing a correction
and an extra chore and then we will praise them for their successes and help them practice it
the right way but, if a child has a chronic problem that is trending toward not being calm, then we're
going to use a trigger spot called a calm down place. So, a trigger spot is different than timeout
because they're not there for any certain period of time. It is only a place to remind someone to
get calm, that's all it's about and after they are done getting calm, they still get to have a
correction and earn an age-appropriate extra chore. So, it is not a negative consequence at all. In fact
when I'm pre-teaching this to my children, I teach them that you don't even need to go there if you
get calm on the way. So if my child is whining, I teach them ahead of time. Pre-teaching, I say
all right when you are whining, mommy will look at you and she will say Porter, you're whining. We
need to go to the calm down place and I will gently take my child to the calm down place
and then I will tell the child now we just need to take some deep breaths and get calm and say okay.
As soon as your calm, mommy will come back and give you a big hug and a high five and when I
say come back, I'm not even leaving the area that much because otherwise some of them run
away from the calm down place and they don't use it to get calm, right? So we're gonna be staying
pretty close and then I'm gonna say just say okay, take some deep breaths and I'm going to be right
close by in the area. So then the child learns very quickly even through the role plays, I can just say
mommy, I'm calm on the way to the calm down place and then I'm going to get praised and I don't even
need to go to the calm down place, then mommy's gonna do a correction about how they should have
handled the situation before because they didn't have a calm voice because they were whining and
then we will practice it the right way, they'll get the opportunity to earn an age-appropriate extra
chore. So that's the way that I handle toddlers the majority of the time. So we've talked about
how to help the child and correct some of those toddler problems and misbehaviors that we might
find but there is something special. In fact it is vital at creating an environment where a
child does have a change of heart and a change of behavior and that vital component is you.
Are you calm? Are you self-governing? Do you have the skills that you need? So one key thing that
you can do is not take their misbehavior personally. So, that means that you have to
decide nope, that's a child, a child does that, they're not perfec.t I'm gonna help them learn
from this and we're gonna practice it the right way. This is what a wise parent does. They accept it
which means they are accepting and no answer too. Sure, you wanted them to be perfect in that minute
but nope, they're not going to because they're a child and they're still learning all of the time,
so don't take it personally. Choose to find some of your own calmness, that's going to make
a big difference. If you think that you might need help with a little bit of your calmness,
then I highly recommend the next video which is "The Expectation Trap versus The Cycle For Success."
This video is actually a full class that I gave for free on the internet which explains
how we trap ourselves emotionally and how we can also prepare to be emotionally free
and have better connections with our children even during the difficult moments of correction. So,
click on the link to The Expectation Trap versus The Cycle For Success now, I will see you there.