I am sure it’s one of those things that all of us dads will run into at some point, you tell your child to stop doing something, they look you dead in the eyes, smile and go straight ahead and do it anyway, as if it’s some great game. Aaaarrrrrrhhhhhh!!!!!

There are a lot of books and information out there on parenting and how to discipline your kids, from the super nanny to your own parents. To be honest, a lot of it is trial and error. The following is from my own experience and is written as such.

From my experience, women seem to react more calmly than guys, and may get better results because of this. As a guy, you may find yourself shouting at your toddler or pulling them away from what ever it was that they were about to destroy and leaving it at that.

Even though this may remedy the immediate problem or danger, it does not actually help your child learn what they are doing wrong and, if anything, it may actually confuse them. This is because they may not associate your reaction with what they were doing wrong, and they actually need you to explain what the problem is rather than just reacting.

Pushing the boundaries is what toddlers do and is part of their learning and development. It is perfectly normal for toddlers to test your reactions by trying the same things over and over, even after you've told them not to. The important thing to do, is to let them know what those boundaries are and not to change them if they push you again.

So what can you do??

I was definitely of the shout and if that doesn’t work shout louder school of thought. But quite quickly it became apparent that this does not work. My son would just get upset and I would end up feeling guilty.

I do think that in certain situations shouting works, for example when they are doing something immediately dangerous and you are not going to be able to get to them in time, however if possible it is better not to.

My wife introduced me to the positive parenting theory, which is, praise positive behaviour traits that you want to encourage and try to ignore minor bad behaviour that you do not want repeated. This reinforces the behaviour that you want them to follow and discourages the bad behaviour such as temper tantrums etc.

The above works for day to day behaviour, but if your toddler misbehaves the following has served me well:

1. Don’t shout at them, get down to their level and make and retain eye contact with them.

2. Don’t just say “No!”. Explain what they are doing wrong, or what you would like them to do, followed by an explanation of why. Make sure that they understand what you are saying to them by asking them, “Do you understand?” This allows your child to fully understand what they are getting in trouble for and why.

3. Do not get angry, try to keep calm and reasonable. If you are unable to control yourself, then why should your toddler??? If they continue to misbehave, repeat step 2, but remain calm, they will get the message eventually.

If you follow the above you should hopefully find that things improve for you and that both you and your toddler are happier, as you are setting clear and defined boundaries that they are able to understand and follow

Good luck with it – we’ve all been there!