How do you get your toddler to listen?

Question

My son is going to be 2 in December. He was recently diagnosed with autism so I may be going about this the whole wrong way (dont crucify me) but I just cant get him to behave and listen to me in the slightest. 
I started off very gentle. For example I would tell him we dont play with the blinds let's play with this instead and try to redirect his attention to something else. And that approach just does not work anymore. So I would start to raise my voice slightly, say his name sternly and remove him from the situation. I've tried time outs in his pack and play, taps on the hand or bottom (nothing wrong with a light hand tap, I'm not abusing my child). Nothing seems to work. As soon as I take him out of time out or even change rooms to play with something and redirect his attention he goes right back to doing whatever I was trying to keep him from doing. (Playing with the blinds, pulling on our curtains, playing with wires, climbing up furniture and grabbing cups, candles which aren't lit, just anything he can possibly get to he will get to.) I'm really struggling over here and feeling like an awful parent. He listens to his father whenever he says his name sternly or no but he doesnt listen to me at all and I'm the one who's with him all day every day 😭

Answer

Masters in severe disabilities here- one strategy try is focusing on what he SHOULD be doing instead of what not to do. A lot of times, for children with autism (and children in general) if you say “don’t XYZ” or “we don’t XYZ”, all they here is “XYZ” instead of the “don’t” part. They also may not know what the appropriate behavior actually entails. One way to help this is instead of saying “don’t touch blinds” or whatever it is, tell him what he should do with his body. Such as “keep your hands safe” and model and show him what this looks like by showing him hands at his sides, or folded hands, something like that. Instead of “don’t run” show him walking feet and direct him to do that instead. Does that make sense? Overall you will get a lot further if you focus on the positive alternative behaviors instead of even attending to the inappropriate behavior he’s engaging in. Definitely point out his safe hands, walking feet etc. when he IS doing those things so he can start to learn what that means. I will add that he is very young still and depending on how severe his autism is, this is a total work in progress. Good luck girl ♥️

Answer

My daughter (2, not autistic) gets ticked when I make her just sit. She hates sitting still, so that's the best thing I've found so far. She doesn't do well with redirection either and spanking her hardly works (she cries for like two seconds and then goes back to being a heathen 😂😂). But the other day she would not stop, so I made her sit on the couch. Just sit. She wasn't allowed to lay down or touch me or her dad. She didn't have anything to play with, she just had to sit. It drove her absolutely insane. After that she did really good for the rest of the day when it came to listening to us on what not to touch.

Answer

My 2 year old is the same way except not autistic (as far as we know) someone please help

Answer

I’ve worked with children at different levels on the spectrum, and yes it is hard. Consistency is key. It takes time, but once they see you’re not going to budge they will stop testing your authority... in that way. And wow the ways they may test you; I view it much the same as every child but the difference is I have to more strongly discipline myself. Showing I’m overwhelmed overwhelms them or lets them think they have leverage;  I want it to be soooo clear that it’s coming from a place of love and for them to see we can’t do what we want to do just because we want to do it. My perspective is a bit different because I was working with children who have other people at home who would respond to them in ways I would not. I had to be very careful with how I reacted to fits & tantrums; sometimes the child needed my guidance but sometimes they were just trying to get me to coddle them. I’d have to watch them in ways that seemed as though I wasn’t and see how they behaved not thinking I was looking. If they weren’t paying any attention to me at all I knew I needed to step in, but if they would pause to peak out of their fingers to find my eyes and catch them and then go back to kicking and screaming I knew I needed to keep them away from the other children and not give them any of the negative attention they were seeking because letting them think they controlled that situation would not help. I know this is so long now and I feel like I’ve not really said much but the same thing over and over but I hope it helps at least a little. Discipline yourself—and teach self-discipline. With every case of autism I’ve seen, the less structure and discipline provided the harder the child struggled. My husband is also high-functioning autistic and agrees this helps him. I feel like a lot of children aren’t able to display how high-functioning they really are because they get coddled and treated like they’re not capable rather than given the loving discipline and structure they’re so desperately asking to be given, which brings me back to the point that it’s not much different than other children except I feel not giving it to them causes more harm because it teaches them they’re not capable and they so need to see that they are beautifully capable. The show The Good Doctor touches on this and really teaches soooooo much; it’s about a surgeon with autism. He has a patient at one point who appears to be severely autistic and whose parents don’t want the doctor working with him once they find out because they believe he’s less capable but the doctor ends up helping this boy and the parents to the point that it becomes obvious he only seemed so severe because the parents treated him like that’s just the way it was (they didn’t know any better, but they learned; it was tear-inducing to say the least) Great show, really. You can do this, Mama.

How do you get your toddler to listen?

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