How Much Yelling?

Question

No matter what I do, most of the time my son doesn't respond except when I yell. When he is doing something he's not supposed to I will tell him to stop several times, redirect him to something else, I keep trying and trying but the other thing he seems to respond to is yelling. I am not normally a yeller so I feel bad when it happens. What are you guys doing when your little one just won't listen?

Answer

I have a lot of luck with warnings counting to 3. The key is follow through. So if my son is doing something I REALLY don’t like (caps because I try to pick my battles so I don’t exhaust my own willpower lol) then I say (quite sternly, but not yelling) “Roman, that’s 1.” If it’s low value he will stop. If not and he persists, I say “Roman, that’s 2, and if you do it again I’m going to _____” So usually either physically move him, take it away, or maybe threaten a time out. Sometimes after 2 I offer an alternative like “hey why don’t you go play with that blah blah blah”. Usually if we get to 2, then we are going to get to 3 lol so the next time I get up immediately and do what I said I was going to. 
If he goes back to what he was doing afterwards then I will physically stand in his way and prevent the thing or move to time out.
I really believe the key is follow through, so he knows you aren’t just bluffing. And the key to follow through is picking the things that are a “hard no”. Like obviously hurting his sister is a hard no. That one is going to need more immediate action and prevention than a 3 count. For us, one of the “hard no”s is pressing the buttons repeatedly on our new dishwasher lol so sometimes that means letting it go if he jumps on the couch or pulls cups out of cupboards.. because that stuff happens so frequently and doesn’t really hurt anyone and at 30 weeks I just don’t have the effort to enforce all of those things. I might say “you know, I don’t like that. You’re making a mess,” or something so he knows I don’t fully approve. 
Also (sorry, this is so long!! Lol) one last thing. I find while it’s important you don’t always negotiate with a toddler, since they’re pretty unrealistic and unreasonable 🤔 sometimes having a conversation about WHY you’re saying no makes a huge difference. Like, I don’t need to explain myself to him - that’s not it. It’s that sometimes just like adults, when you understand a reason then it helps you to feel like there is a reason to do something. Hitting for us is always “hitting hurts”. “Why don’t we hit our brother? Because hitting hurts. Ouch.”

Answer

Yeah I know what you mean. They are definitely in a world of their own. I find the stronger my reaction or if I get angry, that just encourages my lo to do whatever it is she isn't supposed to do even more /and/or to start having a fit.  I usually pretend, as the other person said,  that there's something really amazing going in elsewhere. It depends if it's dome thing dangerous,  obviously I try to react quickly but really aim for being calm because otherwise she acts all panicky and flapping her arms about which generally means the dangerous thing could turn into more dangerous. If it's something i don't necessarily want her to do but isn't dangerous, like walking upstairs, I just accompany her and hold her hand. It's a bit difficult to explain. I just find getting all worked up or mad or showing frustration just makes it worse so I sort of pretend to be cool though I'm not lol. I spend my time finding alternatives for her or making her giggle anything that will make her forget what she's doing.

Answer

Mine unfortunately does not listen to me when I yell. I better off explaining it to her in short sentence like “no thank you, it’s ouchie or yikey or too hot”. And then offer something else follows by “how about we do this?” Or pretends there’s something cool in different direction and 😱 say “what’s that over there?!” And then she got distracted right away lol. Not sure what type of situations are you referring to when you tell him no and he still does it???

Answer

My daughter hears every time I politely ask her to not do something, but will intentionally keep doing it until I yell (usually it's a safety thing) and then she cries. It's clear she is choosing to act that way and it's so frustrating. I don't want to yell. I hate it, but I have no idea what else to do.

How Much Yelling?

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