Ideas of Consequences for My 3Yr Old

Have you tried cutting food dyes out of her diet? These have been shown to really alter behaviors and make kids very unruley. Just a thought.

Put different chores into the jar for consequences. Use lots of supervision and MAKE her do it every time. Be consistent. If she doesn't do the chore, put her in her room for a few minutes. When she gets out, go back to the chore. Keep at it until the chore gets done.

M., this is going to be a novel so my apologies in advance!! I may be way off base here (since I really don't know the extent of your situation) I just wanted to share my story and experience. I think some of it might apply to you. It's just such a complicated topic (at least for me) and being the best parent I can be is somthing I'm passionate about. It doesn't come naturally to me. Boy have I been in your situation with my son. Reading your post took me back; he did everything your daughter does and more. He is an extremely active little boy, strong willed, curious and sharp. It all began when he was 18 months and facinated with the electrical outlets and expensive electronics that we didn't want him to play with. He is now 5 but our absolute worst year was the age of 3! Slowly, but surely, things have improved greatly over the last 2 years. He's my first so I didn't know what was "typical" of children this age. I just know my dad would always say, he's going to be a tough one. His pediatrician would also tell me to watch him carefully because he was so curious (the type to get himself into trouble). How did the pedi see this so early on!! :) Anyway, I have since learned that he is definitely more strong willed than your average child and tests more too. He wants things his way all of the time. I like to tell myself that having his personality type will pay off in the end (he's still no cake walk but things have gotten so much better). Anyway, looking back on it now, here's what I wish I had of done differently. A lot less punishment and a lot more positive feedback. I thought I was doing a good job at positive reinforcement. I wasn't. You need to acknowledge MANY good behaviors. Many more than the punishments (which was hard for me to do since he was CONSTANTLY into something I wasn't okay with...outlets, plugging things in, etc.). I was saying "no" all of the time as early as 18 months. The punishments were teaching him that he was "bad." He eventually took on this role. For the positive, right down to things like, "I like that you are sitting still at the table right now or I like how you are playing so nicely with your brother." I'm sure you know all of this already. Where I went wrong was too much punishment. Too many time outs, too many things taken away, too many expressions of disapproval too many "no's". I thought he'd change his behavior through punishment. I thought he'd learn right from wrong this way. I had it all wrong and didn't even know it. It was this vicious cycle. It got to the point where he was seeking out the negative attention (it became the "norm" for him). It got so bad that at one point his M.D.O. teacher said she praised him for something and he immediately turned around and did something undesirable because he was seeking negative attention (he was more used to this than the positive). I was just getting after him too much (I didn't know how to handle his love of dangerous and expensive things...this was our issue that started the trend for us. He was probably feeling very frustrated that he couldn't satisfy his curiosity. He was just trying to learn but mom kept saying "no" to everything he wanted to do.). By the time he turned 3, I had a child who literally tested more than good behaviors. If you don't have an extremely strong willed and curious child, you couldn't begin to understand what I mean. The good behaviors are there, it just takes work to recognize them. They are behaviors that we just expect out of our children. I never knew to praise him for things like playing quietly by himself. It was expected from me. It never occurred to me to praise him for the tiniest of things instead of thinking to myself, "finally, we are having a good and calm moment." I was wrong. I was raised at what I'm calling, "the wrong way" and I NEVER spoke back or acted the way he did. It worked for me; I was a pleaser and my son is not. I didn't know how to raise a "spirited" child. One thing I do recommend is to read, read, read. I like "How to Talk so your Kids will Listen, How to Listen so your Kids will Talk." I just finished it and I'm about to re-read it and do all of the activities it recommends. I also recommend Love and Logic (haven't read it yet but I've never heard a bad thing about it). Also, get on the Kirk Martin "CALM" email newsletter. There is some fantastic information in these!!! ...they are like little daily reminders to keep you on track (also good information that will apply to us when they are older; I hope to prevent bad habits instead of having to correct them). Also, there was a great Primetime on last week (called Family Secrets). Maybe you can watch it online. These were some extreme cases but they had experts on there who gave some great parenting advice. When she is out of control, here are a couple of things I have learned from my friend who is an Occupational Therapist for kids. Have them carry heavy things, take a walk, jump on a mini trampoline, chew gum or something hard to chew. Drink jello or yogurt out of a straw. Deep breaths (trick her and say, "do you smell that?" You take the deep breaths too. It's a good distraction because she will think it's fun to try and identify what you are pretending to smell). They sound silly, I know! However, I gave it a try and it really does work. We use these methods all of the time. It's all very calming. One thing I have learned is don't take away a toy or put her in time out for every little thing she does. Sometimes it's not appropriate. She is 3 and it's her job to test and learn. Sometimes, simply correct her. For example, many times when my son talks back, rather than raising my voice because I'm disappointed, I simply say, "try again" in a calm voice. I have taught him to recognize how his voice and words are inappropriate but I give him a chance to correct himself. It took a while to "train him" (and train myself!) but over the last year, he almost never complains and just repeats his sentence in a much more respectful manner. Now, I am NOT saying never punish. We still do our fair share of time outs and taking toys away. But not for every little offense anymore. You can also kind of brain wash her. If she uses a tone you don't like, say, we use kind words and a kind voice in our house. After hearing this over the years, she'll start to believe it and respect it. If you use an undesirable tone, correct yourself and apologize in front of her. Anyway, I'm so proud of his progress and proud of mine too. I know we'll just get better and better. Just have lots of faith in her and show her loads of love. Never forget to remind her of the wonderful qualities she has (on a daily basis). She may be a tougher child to raise but I keep reading that the strong willed ones will turn out to be incredible and successful adults....as long as we never give up on them!

Hi, my job is to work with parents and their children with behavior issues and give parenting tips. I also have a precious three year old and nearly two year of my own, so I am with you on this one. What we recommend is a job jar and joy jar, I have not done this with my children, but I have for work and it has been very successful. You get 2 jars or plastic baggies or boxes, have the children deocorate them, one for happy things and one for unhappy things. You sit down together and create small rewards and small punishments. Like( extra 15 minutes of TV time, video game time, playing a special game with mommy or daddy, getting to pick whats for dinner, ect) and negatives such as(having to go to bed 30 min earlier, 30 min less tv, no bedtime story, not getting to go to park ect) When you catch your child doing something good, you give her effective praise which is: show approval ( smile, high five, thank you,) then you tell her what you saw, or what she did that was good, ( you put your cup in the sink all by yourself, or I saw you give your brother that toy you were playing with), then you can give her a reward. A hug is sometimes all a child might want but you can also tell her that she can go to the joy jar and pick a peice of paper out. Then she gets to do that. Praise is the best thing you can use to change a child's misbehavior. YOu have to catch them doing good, find any small improvment and use effective praise. I have noticed when I am correcting and correcting my children's misbehavior it makes it worse. Instead I have learned to step back, take a deep breath, and find something I can find to praise them on. This will usuaully break the cycle and they will try harder to please me. With this being said, negative consequences must also be present, but they need to be much fewer than positive consequences. A good rule of thumb is for every time you disipline, you give out 5 praises or positive consequences. So when they do hit or talk back you can use corrective teaching- 1. Show and tell problem behavior ( you hit brother, you ran away after I asked you to come here, ect), 2. show and tell positvie behavior ( when you get mad at brother I want you to take a deep breath, and come and tell me what happened) 3. Practice - (show me how you can take a deep breath and tell mommy what is wrong), 4. Give consequence ( for hitting your brother because he took your baby doll, you will not be allowed to play with your doll until after your nap), or if your upset and not able to think of an effective consequence then you have her go get it out of the job jar or unhappy jar. My advice is that you must establish what is accepted and not accepted and let her know there will consequnces when she breaks the rules, then you must follow through with the positive and negative consequnces you give her, and do not let disrespectful behavior be accepted- if you saw the teenagers I work with you would know what I mean. Well good luck and that's just a little bit of the info I have. We have our program in corpus as well- It's the STAR program, Im not sure of the number, but I bet you can find it if wanted- it's a free program funded by the state and we do In-Home visits so you do not have to drag your kids everywhere. Well message me if you have any other questions. Thanks! A.

HI M.,
At age 3 I am not sure she really understands consequences yet- I think I would first look into the reason why she is to aggressive and destructive. It could be her diet - try keeping a chart of her foods and her behavior outbursts- see if you can see a pattern-
good luck and blessings

Whatever you decide to do, BE CONSISTANT! When you are constantly changing up your discipline, kids learn to just push you harder and longer since you probably won't have the same response you had last time.

Immediate, meaningful, consistent is what they need at this age. 3 is the hardest age in my opinion. 2 is nothing compared to 3. That being said, they understand more, but are not yet able to reason as we thing they should. It does you and them no good if you discipline her an hour after the fact or for a long period of time. They just don't get it.

I can say to my 5 year old- if you behave all week, you can have a lunch tray on Fri. He gets that. A 3yo wouldn't.

Praise what she does right. All the time. Be as positive as possible at all times. Remind her- "sweetie, if you break that, it is gone and there is no more" or If you do that, then we will not be able to watch our movie or play our game." Redirection also still works well at this age. And there is nothing wrong with a stern NO!

It is such a hard age. Hug her daily no matter what and good Luck!

Children at the age of three do not understand what your eight years old does. The three year olds brain does not understand the word dont--so do not use it while talking the three year old does not hear it AT ALL. Talking works with big words that you use all the time. If you tell your three year dont run all he or she hears is run. It sounds like she is angry about something. Try to spend one on one time with just her. She hits because she has seen it, yells because she has heard it, does not listen because it is done to her, talks back because she has seen it. Think abou that. Sometimes you do not even notice you do those things. Most of the time the adult is the one that needs to change how they react to the child not the child to the adult. Try the book parenting 911--they teach it to parents in public schools in some areas. It is a good read.

To help your daughter follow the guidelines you want her to try the following.

Always tell her what you expect of her whenever you are doing something with her- " I expect you to play with your toys without breaking them - if you get rough with them I will give you one warning and if you don't listen, I will put the toy away for __ number of days." The important factor is you or your husband following through with whatever you said. The first week she may be without toys, who knows, but only bring back one at a time.

Help her make positive choices - "Do you want to play with this toy appropriately or do you want me to put it away for 2 days? Remember we need to treat our toys nicely or you won't have any.

Make sure the consequence fits the inappropriate behavior-
toys treated badly - up they go. Hitting others - she is by herself playing alone. Yelling, screaming - she is sent to room to do it and when she stops, she may come out

Good luck - parenting is the hardest job there is!

I definitely don't agree with the spanking response!!! How is it o.k. for you to hit her but not o.k. for her to hit her brother? Surely we can be the adults and use our minds to solve these problems. My 3 year old son definately understands consequences and even uses the word in context. She can understand. It's just a matter of finding out a way that she will want to.

We use concepts from Love and Logic for Early Childhood. We have just kept adapting them til a version worked for us. You sound like you've got your hands full! Best of luck to you and don't give up!

spankings work great. and get the point accross quickly. done correctly they teach the child to obey and do not hurt their spirits.

I don't have anything to add about specific behaviors for you, but I would like to suggest a change in how we think of "consequences". Consequences are not all bad; they are just the natural results of something that happens--sometimes feeling good, sometimes feeling not so good. Thinking like that helps me not to focus so much on figuring out a punishment, but more on teaching that "this is what happens if you do that". It helps me not to make it personal so the children can learn that it's not something for them to take personally.

Hi M.,

I have a 3 year old female too. She is doing a lot of the similar behaviors that you have identified. Unfortunately, for me- no consequences are really working. If I do give her a "time out" to break from her anger- be it physical acting out- she will then verbalize anger instead. I am beginning to use deep breathing and trying to give verbal prompting prior to the behavior and as I see it coming. If I consequence with the removal of something (ie.toy) she just moves onto next one :)

I would love to see the feedback of others.

Hang in there. Mine's a little monkey :)

We had to change our tactics with my youngest because consequences just weren't hacking it. I think she figured out that she basically could live without whatever.

So, we switched it up and we had her working towards things, something as simple as she loved this little cash register....as time went on it would change.

Good luck,
Debra

If you find your daughter breaks and destroys "things that are hers ...", please consider talking with a child psychologist. It probably isn't that your 3-yr-old needs counseling but that is a signal that she might have some issues she just doesn't know how to handle. In a talk with my child's psychologist, I learned a lot in regards to what _I_ could do for my child!

A resource that I highly recommend (and have had recommended by our child psychologist) is a book called "1-2-3 Magic" by Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D. You may find this book at the public library or at a Half Price Books store. It has been a great resource for me.

Good luck.

is she getting enough sleep. grouchy kids tend to be little monsters. also make sure she isnt getting too much sugary foods/junk foods. a healthy diet also helps...she might get a slight belly ache or headache from eating a bit of candy and not realize it but be grouchy. i tend to see that kids that pick there own hours and food are naughty and difficult. once that is undercontroll its much better. good luck hope you find your answer. (btw mom said i was a terror at the age of three).

I am not so sure about the job jar either. My kids all have chores and work to do around the house...and it's not b/c they misbehave....it's to teach them responsibility and ownership and life skills.

I won't repeat all the other suggestions about consequences---many were very good. I would encourage you to take all artificially colored foods---the reds, the blues, the purples....out of her diet. Out of everyone's diets! Those artificially colored foods are horrible, especially blue! Whoever thought blue food coloring / dye would be a good idea? Anyway, I digress.

And maybe she's not getting enough sleep. An idea. When my oldest was 3, his little neighbor friend became very agressive and mean. And unpredictable. His parents were keeping him up a little later because he played quietly in his room or liked long baths. It was the next day that was bad. So they started putting him to bed an hour or hour and a half earlier and the "sweet boy" returned.

I did this with my kids and it worked,,, every time they said no to me I would put it in a jar or bowl. When they asked me for something I pulled out a no and showed it to them. I always made sure that they saw me put it in and take it out. Good luck they are so much fun at this age,,,,,,,

I'm not sure what a consequence jar is but it sounds as though each time she does something that needs to be corrected there will be a different consequence. Oh my does that sound like a recipe for confusion on her part.

At her age she is old enough to understand actions and consequences. It sounds as though you have tried too much. Pick a consequence and stick to it. Every time with no exceptions. This includes at home, in the car, at the store, at grandma's, at a friend's house, at a restaurant. You don't have to make a big deal of it and embarass her but she needs to know that every time you will follow through with the consequence if she chooses to make a bad choice. But along with that she needs to understand that if she makes good choices that there are good consequences. It can be as simple as saying "You played so nicely with your friends today and shared all of your toys, that made mom so happy and proud of you." Or you can tell her that she gets to read an extra book that night or extra bath time play time. I would stay away from giving them sweets or buying gifts because that could create a new monster to deal with.

Also if you know you are going into a situation that has caused problems in the past, let her know exactly what you expect of her before you get there. If she is going to be playing with friends, you might tell her that friends play nice with each other and they share their toys. You can tell her that her hands are for helping others not for hurting others. If you are going out to dinner, let her know if it is a restaurant that she will be expected to stay in her seat and to use a quiet voice (make a game of it - who can use the quietest voice throughout dinner gets extra tickles that night)or is it a place like McDonald's that has a play area. If it has a play area make sure she understands that she has to finish eating before getting her toy or go to the play area. If it becomes a battle getting her to finish her meal, then get up and leave. One warning and then do it. No negotations!!!!

This is a hard battle and she will test you to see if you will follow through. This is a battle that you need to win now. You and your husband need to sit down and agree on how the two of you are going to deal with this. There will be days that you will feel as though you are not making any progress but keep at it. It will pay big dividends in the end.

Since our daughters were about 4 years old the majority of our discipline has consisted of "the look" or an "Excuse Me!" and they know that something they are doing is not what they should be doing. They are now 13 and 15 and are still great kids. Ocassionally they will start with an attitude and we just remind them that our names are still listed as the parents on their birth certificate and until that changes they better watch their attitude. Now don't think that we rule our house with an iron fist because we don't. We encourage our kids to question authority but it needs to be done in a respectful way. If they have asked to do something that we have said no to, they know that they can come and talk to us about it. Sometimes we don't have all of the information we need to know, sometimes we need to be gently reminded that they are growing up and do need more responsibility or freedom, etc. Our answers sometimes change, sometimes stays the same, and sometimes we can come to a compromise. However if there is crying, tantrums, pouting, etc., the answer is an automatic no.

I don't think we would have the relationship that we have now if we hadn't been so firm with them back when they were toddlers. It is hard and frustrating to be a parent at this age but if you put in the hard work now it will pay off later.

You are the mom and you can do this. Best of luck.