One Simple Trick to Stop Bad Behavior

After my son developed a bad habit of throwing his toys, or hitting his sister with the toys, it was my mission to correct the behavior before it got to far out of hand. It was a frustrating time because I knew he wasn't a bad kid, he was just behaving badly. I was at a loss on how to correct his behavior until I had the "AH HA!" moment.

My Boober is a typical little boy. I am well aware little boys are rough and tough and essentially need to be so in order to explore their worlds. I am not discouraging my little man from playing like a little boy, but sometimes he goes overboard and gets a little too rough.

Last year he developed a habit of hitting with toys and throwing toys. Needless to say this was unacceptable. At the time I was not sure what I was going to do. I felt like I was repeating myself constantly. I was telling him “not to do this, not to do that….” every other sentence. I tried googling advice and nothing was working for me.

I’m not sure when my “AH HA!” moment occurred but I had recalled seeing some moms using a toy jail. I thought this system might work for us with a few major adjustments. Here is the breakdown of what I did:

First when I saw Boober playing independently with his toys I would watch him. I wanted to catch him in the act. This way I was able to respond immediately to the behavior. The second he hit Mokey in the head with a toy, I had him bring me the toy. I then told the toy not to hit Boober’s little sister.

After I began talking to the toys, I then began having Boober talk to his toys. I told Boober’s toys each time they misbehaved that they had a 1st warning, a 5 minute time out and then they were in time out for the day (in a box similar to toy jail). Then I put Boober in charge of disciplining his toys. He was the one to tell them to stop hitting or “jumping across the room”.

As my third and final step I had Boober explain to his toys why they were in trouble. Soon he understood why his toys were being put away and he knew how to stop it. HE was in charge, and he began to change his own behavior.

This worked splendidly in our home, and I hope this trick works well for you. Boober is so independent so putting him in charge was the key to our success

With Love,

Fraggle Momma.