Top 7 mistakes parents make while disciplining toddlers

Discipline in toddlers has been considered one of the most difficult aspects of parenting. Toddlers are full of questions, emotionally driven, impulsive, and still attempting to understand the way the world operates. However, many parents have high expectations of their toddlers that they are developmentally unready for. Discipline has been widely confused as punishment when it is considered teaching or guidance.

Parents can make errors as well when it comes to discipline and that can cause confusion, power struggle, and emotional distress for their children. By being informed of some of these common mistakes, good parents can discipline children effectively and lovingly.

One of the most common errors that parents make is to demand the emotional regulation that is expected in older children and adults from toddlers. The issue is that the toddlers’ brains are still in the developmental stages, and the areas that control impulses and emotional regulation are not fully developed. When a parent demands to see a child in a non-emotional state when he/she is frustrated, hungry, and tired, he/she becomes emotional and sends out the wrong signals.

Many parents try reasoning, lecturing, or punishing when a toddler is right in the middle of a tantrum. At those moments, a child's emotional brain is in charge, and learning is close to impossible. Discipline while a child is in emotional overload leads more often to distress than understanding. This helps toddlers feel safe, so they are much more receptive to guidance later on when addressing behaviour. Teaching happens after the storm, not during it.

Inconsistent discipline confuses toddlers. When a specific behavior is ignored one day and scolded the next, children are not sure what behavioral expectations exist. This can actually have the effect of escalating testing behaviours as toddlers seek to understand what really counts. Predictable limits make toddlers feel safe. The more stable and predictable the rules are, the better the chance that children will cooperate and learn what behaviour is unacceptable in the long run.

Too much emphasis on punishment can instil fear in the child. Time out, screaming, or taking something away because you do not explain could not provide the greatest options for the child. Good discipline will result when skills involving patience, communication, or problem solving are also being transferred. The toddlers will be able to change their behavior for the better once they know what they need to do differently.

“You’re bad,” “What’s wrong with you?”, or “Why can’t you behave?” can be very effectively interpreted by the developing self-concept of the child. Children have no cognitive understanding of language to interpret the messages that they hear. "Discipline should be aimed at the behaviour, not at your child's character." Respectful communication helps a child preserve self-esteem while adapting to a change of behaviour.

Two-year-olds tend to misbehave because of unmet needs, whether that be hunger, exhaustion, overstimulation, or a lack of vocabulary to express feelings. Simply focusing on a behavioural issue without considering its cause results in a loss of effectiveness of discipline. By understanding what’s driving a particular behaviour, parents can then react in a more thoughtful way. Very often, simply satisfying the need will eliminate the behavioural problems.

Children’s parents can easily become discouraged if the lack of discipline does not bring quick results. Two-year-old children, in the process of learning, use repetition, modeling, and waiting. Learning proper behaviors is a procedure and not a single experience. Usually, it is an uneventful process.