Disciplining a two-year-old
I could use some advice on how to discipline a two-year-old.
We've been lucky that up to now, K hasn't engaged in deliberate misbehavior very often. But recently, she's taken to pulling the cats' tails, and when I tell her to stop, she deliberately does it again.
So far, our approach to discipline has been either removal and redirection or using natural consequences. But for the life of me, I can't think of the natural consequence of pulling the cats' tails, and then deliberately doing it again when I tell her to stop. Well, I can think of a natural consequence, but I don't find it acceptable (letting her attack the cats until they bite or scratch her).
Hurting the cats is an offense that requires swift action and immediate negative consequences, but I'm having trouble coming up with what that should be. I don't want to spank her, although I'm starting to really understand people who do. There's nothing like yelling at a toddler and having her laugh at you to make you want to do something to wipe the smile off of her face and get her to take you seriously. A timeout was certainly punishing for everyone involved, but since it was basically a two-minuts wrestling match to get her to stay put, I didn't really care for it. I'm not sure what other effective, non-violent punishments there are for two-year-olds.
So for those of you with toddlers, what's your approach to discipline? What do you do when it's too late for prevention and the offense doesn't have a natural consequence?
We've been lucky that up to now, K hasn't engaged in deliberate misbehavior very often. But recently, she's taken to pulling the cats' tails, and when I tell her to stop, she deliberately does it again.
So far, our approach to discipline has been either removal and redirection or using natural consequences. But for the life of me, I can't think of the natural consequence of pulling the cats' tails, and then deliberately doing it again when I tell her to stop. Well, I can think of a natural consequence, but I don't find it acceptable (letting her attack the cats until they bite or scratch her).
Hurting the cats is an offense that requires swift action and immediate negative consequences, but I'm having trouble coming up with what that should be. I don't want to spank her, although I'm starting to really understand people who do. There's nothing like yelling at a toddler and having her laugh at you to make you want to do something to wipe the smile off of her face and get her to take you seriously. A timeout was certainly punishing for everyone involved, but since it was basically a two-minuts wrestling match to get her to stay put, I didn't really care for it. I'm not sure what other effective, non-violent punishments there are for two-year-olds.
So for those of you with toddlers, what's your approach to discipline? What do you do when it's too late for prevention and the offense doesn't have a natural consequence?