Too early to discipline?
Hello.
When I was preparing for the birth of my first son, I read a lot of books. I agree that there is a lot of conflicting information out there on how to raise children. The more I read, the more confused I became. Even with a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Education - Birth through 3rd grade, and plenty of experience with others' children, I felt like I had no clue on how to raise my own. My husband and I are Christians and we believe it is our God-given responsibility to raise well disciplined kids. So, the discipline issue was always in the forefront of my thoughts. But, at such an early age, how do you know which behaviors need to be disciplined?
When my son was 6 1/2 months old and he began to crawl, my husband and I noticed more of his will and personality coming out. We even felt he was being defiant at some point. If I was correcting him, he would look away. I would say, "look at mama" and he would purposefully turn his head. If I held his chin looking at me, he would turn his eyes away from me. Eventually, all those, "mama said don't touch" and "obey mama" paid off. It was amazing! At just 6 months old, I would sign "stop" to my baby and he would stop whining or crawling toward an object.
Now he is 10 months old and we have a new wave of behaviors. Sometimes he refuses to eat his meals (mainly due to teething). At first, I would force him (gentle squeeze/pat to the hand or isolation to crib as suggested in Babywise), but then I felt super guilty. I don't want to be too confrontational with him. Now, when he refuses to eat I just let him go play and try again at the next feeding time. This has worked well and he has not boycotted meals since his last teeth broke in.
Still, I need to find balance and realistic expectations. I definitely think he is smart enough to obey certain orders. On the other hand, I don't want our days to turn into negative struggles. I mainly want to discipline behaviors that are unsafe, such as touching plants and reaching for cables. I don't discipline him when he cries or when he puts his hands in his food.
I'm just curious. At this age, how does discipline look like in your family? Should I be addressing more behaviors? What behaviors should I prepare for as he begins learning to walk?
Thanks!
Debra
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Hello. Just wanted to correct my previous post. My son started crawling at 6 1/2 months, not 5 like stated earlier. Thanks!
Debra
Hi Debra-Your little boy is a quick one too! It sounds like you've got your hands full and you're a momma who wants the best for her son. Mine was army-crawling at 5 months and he certainly had one thing that he was interested in exploring--electrical cords .
I completely agree with the above posts, except for when the exploration is a danger to your child. I'm sharing this as an example where re-direction didn't work for us. Aiden was completely intrigued by electrical cords. I could not keep him away from them. Aiden was (and still is) the type of child who gets one thing on his mind and there is no distracting . I tried saying "NO!" and pulling his hand away over and over again, that didn't discourage him either--in fact, he seemed to think it was a game and laughed at my stern "no" which only encouraged him to do it again to get the stern reaction from me. One day, when my cousin was at my house with her little one and she watched as I pulled Aiden away from the cord multiple times and became completely engaged in a battle of the wills with him. Finally she gently mentioned that I may want to consider spanking his hand. She pointed out that a spank on the hand would hurt far less than a zap from the electrical socket. I realized that the only way to discourage him was to teach him that touching that cord was painful. I decided that I'd much rather that pain come from me than from the electrical socket. That was what finally worked for us to get him to realize the danger, and I'm glad we did that because we ended up joining a church plant that was located in a school building. The babies nursery was in a computer classroom and there were power outlets and cords in all corners of the room--there were baby gates in the way, but it wasn't completely closed off from the access of determined babies. Thankfully, at that point Aiden no longer bothered with cords since he associated trying to touch them with pain...I never could have left him in that nursery if I weren't confident that he wouldn't touch a cord.
I share that story just to say that common sense is an important part of discipline. Aiden's curiosity over the cords was extremely dangerous (let's face it, you can't watch them 24/7 and accidents happen) The only form of discipline that I did before Aiden was 2 was when it came to electrical cords--and only because I believed there was great danger in his determination to explore the cords. As far as eating--I never battled with him over that when he was a baby. There's plenty of time for that when they're 2 and older . In fact, I have a post out there right now about our eating issues ...Keep being a concerned mom--it's obvious you love your son. It's hard with your first one because you aren't sure what your expectations should be for each age...I'm still learning too, and my expectations tend to be high...I think my 2nd baby is going to have an easier time of it now that I understand a little more about where my expectations should be--realistically.
Hello Debra,
When it comes to discipline there are many ways this can be taken. My first thought is that discipline in terms of teaching our children is certainly appropriate for the 10 month old if his maturity is taken into consideration, as Cindy mentioned in her reply. I remember when my kids were nearing their first year I began teaching them to have "discipline" in their demands by giving gestures such as a finger over my mouth when another adult was talking to me. Obviously this isn't much to an infant but it was a beginning and kind of my way to let them "see" that mom was busy and that is why I am not so quick to answer. I want to note that I would not be ignoring them at this point, I would just pick them up and hold my finger over my mouth while I redirected my attention to the other adult. It wasn't long before they seemed to know what that meant and they would quiet down in my arms while I talked.
It is also a good age to start setting an example of how to behave in public settings. When we go places that we know requires a wait we always bring something to keep us occupied during that wait, your 10 month old is ready to start learning to discipline his behavior in the same way. Bring books to read, quiet toys to play with and manipulatives that will keep his mind busy. You should be setting examples daily in this manner for various activities so that he can start to witness the appropriate behavior in different settings.
When I think of discipline as a punishment, in our home it did not exist at such a young age. I know you have probably heard differently recently and some actually believe this is why our "teens" are so ill behaved (because we didn't discipline before 2 yrs). It is in my opinion this is just not true. I have watched 3 boys become very successful and responsible adults, none of which were problem teens and now my girls are in their teen years and well disciplined and use their head wisely in situations. I am not saying we didn't use punishment, we most certainly did, just not this young.
Under 2 yrs I favor a "re-direct" kind of approach. If your little guy is reaching for the wax apples you move them out of his reach and say no, these are mommies. The only time I would even recommend a harsh tone is if he were reaching for something dangerous. Like Cindy mentioned toddlers are learning about the world around them and a large part of that learning is by touching, smelling and unfortunately tasting. As he starts walking you will find many more challenges in this respect but I would still discourage harsh punishment at this time.
After he is 2 yrs old (and has a maturity to grasp this discipline) then you would begin to include consequences for his behavior. Always consider what your baby knows and understands in his world when you think of the term discipline. He needs to start habits of disciplined behavior by mom and dad being prepared to show him how to occupy his time and wait patiently, but punishments are better left until later years. He is by all natures of the word learning what his world is and how it works. Let him explore, guide him away from undesired behaviors and show him how you want him to behave.
I admire that you are reading and studying to learn as much as you can about your baby. I want to encourage you to continue to learn, but always remember it is only someone's opinion, and someone that does not know your values or your child's personality in regards to learning those values. If you feel guilty for a type of approach then it is probably not what is best for you or your child.
I hope this is helpful and would love to discuss this further if you have any other questions. Thanks for posting!
Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com
Hi, Debra! I'm amazed that your little boy started to crawl at five months. Wow! My youngest is nine months now...he can scoot backward but hasn't figured out crawling yet.
I'm going to try to answer your concerns as one mom to another. Smiley
Discipline and maturity go hand in hand. Our babies aren't born understanding our words or anything about the world. As newborns, they understand only their own bodily feelings--hunger, pain, too cold, too hot, etc. As they get older and begin sitting up, they start to notice things around them and become interested in more than "milk!" But they still don't understand the world or our words. They see colorful objects, and they want to touch. If the colorful object is a can of ant poison, they have no way to understand that. Even when they start to crawl, they basically understand nothing about the world they are in. They don't know danger or "Hey, you can't touch that. It cost $1000 and has been in the family for three generations!"
At ten months old, your son is still very, very immature. He understands some of your words, but most of them are still incomprehensible to him.
When it comes to food, eating should be a happy, enjoyable experience. The experiences your son has with food today will follow him throughout his life. If he begins to view eating time as an unhappy time, that negative connotation will follow him into adulthood and can reveal itself as overeating or undereating or some other difficulty. Just like we would never try to force a two-month-old to breastfeed, we should never try to make a ten-month-old eat a meal. This age is not the time for that.
Babies will never starve themselves and will eat exactly the amounts they need to. If your son doesn't want to eat, it's good to let him go play or do something else and then try again later. How many meals per day do you try to give him? Of course, all babies are different in the amount of solid foods they want at a certain age. My nine-month-old eats a small breakfast of cereal and fruit or vegetable each morning and sometimes eats yogurt and a vegetable at dinner. He has a snack of Cheerios in the afternoons sometimes. Some days he'll only take five or six bites of his meal, and other days (like this morning), he eats 20 or more bites. At this age, it's best to just go with the flow.
In my experience with my own three children, I don't find that squeezing and isolating are beneficial for my child or for their behavior at the age we're talking about. Remember that he simply does not understand the world around him completely. If you set him in his crib for isolation, he truly has no idea why.
A realistic expectation for a ten-month-old is that he will touch and experience every single thing he can put his hands on. This is normal! This is the way God designed babies. They need to touch things in order to learn about them.
You're right to want to prevent him from doing anything dangerous, but I personally wouldn't use the word discipline. He's not doing anything wrong, he is just exploring the world the only way he knows how. In our family, we've found it helpful to do a few things to begin to teach the little ones what is safe and what is not.
1. Watch them all the time. They can move fast as I'm sure you're fully aware. If you need to leave the room, take the baby with you. If you truly can't, set him in a playpen or his crib for a few minutes while you do what needs taken care of.
2. If the baby is going for something he shouldn't (i.e. something dangerous or breakable), pick him up and move him. Give him one of his own toys. Play with him to take his mind off that enticing yet forbidden object.
3. If necessary, move certain things into a closet or onto a high shelf...or just get rid of them. I'd rather put poisonous plants outside than risk the baby eating a leaf. Putting away fragile items for a year or two is really no big deal in the long run.
Debra, I hope I'm being helpful. Babies are so much fun. Enjoy this time while you have it. You have so many years ahead of you to help your little boy learn right from wrong. I'm praying for you! Please post again or email me if you'd like to talk about it more.