How does one use positive reinforcement to stop a one year old from doing something?

What precisely is the Bad Thing that she may be considering doing?

Sitting on the dog. She’s a big, sturdy dog and it’s been fine in years past, with other generations of kids, but now her hips are starting to hurt and if the baby sits in the wrong spot Dakota yelps in pain. Someone told me I just needed to use positive reinforcement to change the behavior, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to do that. And, of course, when I asked for a suggestion they didn’t answer.

If anyone has ideas, I’ll be glad to listen.

Kids crave attention and they realize early on bad behaviors get them lots of attention. Sitting on the dog though is not only bad behavior it is potentially dangerous. A dog can do serious harm to a one year old if provoked. Tell her she is hurting the dog and won’t be allowed to be near the dog if she continues to hurt your dog. All dogs have their limits and in my experience it is always the nice dog that never bit anyone that finally does when a kid yanks their tail one too many times.

She doesn’t hurt the dog every time and she’s not doing it TO hurt the dog. She’s just doing it because toddlers like to sit on things just their size. There is a sack of potatoes in a short hallway by the kitchen. She likes to sit on them to. She likes to sit on the bottom step of the stairs too. Every kid that size that has come in the house has sat on Dakota! So she isn’t doing it for attention. She just needs to stop.

You suggest that I explain it to her? She’s a year old. How is she going to understand? And exactly how am I to keep the dog away from her, short of putting Dakota outside in the freezing cold, or locking her in the bathroom? Besides, Dakota is the self proclaimed “kid protector.” She’d tear the door up scratching to get out so she can keep an eye on her baby.

Some concrete examples would be really helpful.

And hey! Where you been @Cruiser?! Missed you! Welcome home!

If she was older it would be so much easier. In fact, her cousins, the twins were here yesterday. They’ll be two at the end of this month. They’re verbal, for the most part, and are picking up 4 or more new words every day. Yesterday they learned, “Go, cat!” to chase Vanta away when she was grabbing at them.

So Savannah sat on the dog, but it didn’t hurt. I went to her and gently pulled her up and said, “You can’t sit on Dakota. Her hip hurts.” I pointed at her hip and repeated, “Hurt. Don’t sit on her.” Well, she leaned down and kissed Dakota’s hip, so I knew she understood, and she didn’t do it again.

I don’t know if Zoey is old enough to make the connection between what her sitting on Dakota could do. I mean, I’ll keep trying but I’m open to suggestions.

Your question indicates that you aren’t thinking about this correctly. You don’t use positive reinforcement to “stop her from doing something bad”. That’s not how it works.

Use positive reinforcement – and it doesn’t have to be “a treat”, just positive attention – when she does things that you want her to do or that she should be doing. The fact that you even consider “what she has in her mind” ... I’m not going there.

She does the things she’s supposed to be doing all the time. How can I possibly relate that back to tie in to her not sitting on the dog?

BTW, I do know how to use positive reinforcement. Potty training is a good example. Clap and whistle when they actually do something in the toilet, and keep all accidents low key, even sympathetic.
It’s how you train a dog to sit, stay, lay down etc. I use Cheerios.

I totally agree with what you’re saying @CWOTUS. The thing is, another user on another question told me to use “positive reinforcement” to get the baby to stop sitting on the dog. So, I mean, how do I do this regarding this specific situation? It wasn’t my idea, so please don’t get snarky with me.

When I said, “How do you reward her for not doing something, when you don’t know if she has it in her mind to do the Bad Thing, but choose not to” As far as I can tell, reading her mind would be the only way I could use positive reinforcement in this situation. I’d have to know, some magic way, that she thought about sitting on the dog, but didn’t, and I could reward her for that. But it’s impossible. So of course you can’t “go there.” There is no where to go.

I’m the jelly the OP is talking about.

@CWOTUS is right. The technique you are looking for is called “capturing” – capture the good behaviour.

In your case, this would mean rewarding Zoey whenever she is being kind and gentle with Dakota. No, I would not feed candy to a baby, as you suggested on the other thread. I’d reward her with tickles, grins, a hug, maybe blow a raspberry on her tummy or whirl her around, if she likes that sort of thing. In my experience, making a baby happy is not too hard. Provided both of you are relaxed and you trust each other, which I am assuming is true in your case.

In addition, I would show my shock at her sitting on Dakota, or doing anything else that is dangerous for Zoey or plain unpleasant for the dog. I would not use only words to convey important messages.

If capturing is not your thing, there is something else which would work: You could use positive reinforcement to actively teach Zoey to listen when you say “no”. To do this, you would say the word, and then reward her in the split-second of surprise that follows. This second method has the added bonus of being teachable anywhere, anytime. You don’t even need Dakota around.

Well, that’s a plan. She needs to associate sitting on the dog with not being nice to her. I’ll work on it from that direction. It’s just a difficult age!

Again, I do know how to administer positive reinforcement. I watch one 7 year old kid pretty regularly who actively does annoying things a LOT because it gets lots of negative attention from Mom at home. I think some people just can’t comprehend that if a kid doesn’t get enough positive attention, they’ll go for the negative.
When he’s with me, I jump on the good things he does, and usually ignore the annoying things.
His folks say he does act better for a while after having been with me.

@Dutchess_III – In my opinion, you are thinking about the whole thing incorrectly. If my friend has been poking holes in his boat for years and asks me how “taking good care of his boat” would fix his problem, in some sense…it’s too late. I know the context in which you are asking this question. We’ve certainly had more than a few conversations in which I advocated for parenting vs bullying. And I’m not going to be able to provide you with a solution for your specific problem.

All I can do is suggest that there is another way to interact with children. A way to set strict boundaries, provide safety and education – all while maintaining a loving, positive relationship in which all parties involved are treated with dignity. But it’s about the relationship you build – not about solving a particular problem. It’s about meeting a child where they are – developmentally, intellectually, and emotionally – and working with them to help them grow and experience in a way that empowers.

I have to run, but let me offer something regarding toddlers and behaviors that are dangerous. It’s helpful to use many techniques to keep children safe while they are learning where the boundaries are. Of course, they vary and require a bit of “what works right now” attitude and experimentation. Some options include redirection (distract/divert attention towards something safe), removing the danger, offering choices, working through problem solving together, being proactive in anticipating situations that may be challenging/dangerous, allowing some natural consequences, etc.

You guys are preaching to me like I haven’t had 35 years of parenting experience. I know all the techniques and I have used them all over the years. I’ve redirected, I’ve given choices, I’ve allowed natural consequences, and intervened with logical consequences when the natural ones would be too severe. I’ve used positive reinforcement and negative.

Also, @hominid, you are speaking in general terms. This isn’t an object. This is a DOG and a one year old, non verbal baby.

Redirect is useful if a kid gets their hands on something that could be dangerous, like something made out of glass. You take it away and they start crying, so you give them something else to take their mind off of it, or start playing a game with them. Then you put the dangerous thing up. Does not apply in this case. Unless, as I said, I throw old Dakota out in the cold, or lock her up in the bathroom.

I can’t give her choices because she’s non verbal. I gave choices in my class rooms a lot but the kids could understand what I was saying. “I see you want to throw that wad of paper across the room and try to hit the trash can. Well, go for it. If you make it, we will clap. If you miss, you stay after for a while and help me clean the class room.”
The only way she will understand that she has a choice is if there is some unpleasant consequence that she can associate with sitting on the dog. THEN she knows she has a choice.

Working through problem solving together. Ever tried working through problem solving with a baby? “Now, Zoey, what do you think will happen if you stick a fork in that outlet?”
“Zoey, do you understand that Dakota could bite you and she has sharp teeth that would hurt?”
Zoey, “Laddle laddle laddle toootles giggle!” Craps in her pants.

Plain and simple, she has to quit sitting on the dog. Period. I’ll get it all figured out and get back to you.

PS I will include the positive reinforcement as we discussed, and let you all know how it goes.

@Dutchess_III: “I’ve redirected, I’ve given choices, I’ve allowed natural consequences, and intervened with logical consequences when the natural ones would be too severe. I’ve used positive reinforcement and negative.”

If you want to keep this dog in the house with a one-year-old, then I can’t imagine why you’re using “I’ve” so many times, as though you have done the things that should ameliorate the situation and they haven’t worked. If you are providing your one-year-old access to this dog, you need to be there with her and continue to keep her and the dog safe. The one-year-old is not the problem.

Want to know what I would do? I’m not sure you really care…or should. You should come up with your own solution, while following some basic principles that will keep the kid safe (while protecting the dog). This will not be easy, and will unlikely involve any more “I’ve” statements. It will include lots of “I am”.

Anyway, my wife and I had a dog prior to my first child. The dog was our baby and was amazing. It was a rottweiler/lab mix and was the sweetest, most gentle 90-pound beast I had ever met. Then, my daughter was born. Once she was mobile (crawling around), my sweet dog started acting scared and growling at her. We hired a trainer and worked so hard to make it work. But following an incident where my daughter got too close and teeth were bared, the risk was not worth it, and I wasn’t going to keep the dog locked in a closet. We had to give her away. My mother took her, and we were able to visit her on occasion.

This doesn’t really apply to your situation, but I figured I’d mention it because it seemed somewhat related. You need to find your own way here. I would only recommend that the safety of that one-year-old is guaranteed throughout the process. It’s not going to be easy. Good luck.

@Dutchess_III: “Ever tried working through problem solving with a baby?”

@hominid: ”...It’s about meeting a child where they are – developmentally, intellectually, and emotionally…”

I really won’t waste your time defining this for you.

Well, give me an example of problem solving with a non-verbal baby, please.

I would have done the same thing in your position. But you’re right. Not the same situation. Dakota has never growled at another human being (at least since we’ve had her, considering she was trained as an attack guard dog. Or they tried to. Then gave up and gave her to us) and she’s very protective of the children. My daughter was here once when I was gone. Her oldest was about 3 and she was standing at our sliding glass door looking out into the yard. My daughter was in the living room when suddenly Dakota came in, dragging the baby by her pants, forcing her to walk to the back door and planted her there, then stood in front of the baby and wouldn’t let her go anywhere.
My daughter was all, WTH? So she went to look and there was a big old possum just on the other side of the sliding glass door.

I’m not saying she would never snap in a moment of pain, but I do know she’d rather chew off her own paw than hurt one of her kids.

I’ll get it figured out.

You won’t be wasting my time by giving me an example of problem solving with a non-verbal baby. And please apply it to this specific situation.

^ Developmentally-appropriate response to a one-year-old will unlikely involve lots of critical reasoning. You need to treat the dog like an outlet or a staircase. It’s developmentally-appropriate for the kid to want to explore. She has no idea about the dangers involved. Your job is to keep her safe. If you’re going to keep the outlets exposed or refuse to put gates at the top of the stairs, you need to be on the floor with her when she is – or at least right there to redirect and offer her something else to explore. Give her a safe cabinet to explore, allowing her to rip through all of the plastic containers and pots and pans. Fill a bucket with dried beans and rice and allow her to explore the textures and play with toys in it. Anything but sitting on that dog. If she crawls to the dog 100 times and you redirect her 100 times, I suspect she’ll be somewhat less likely to head to the dog the 101st time. And if not, thank her for all of the exercise she’s giving you. She’s doing nothing wrong. Just keep that in mind. It’s completely normal.

That’s redirecting. Redirecting also involves getting rid of whatever you redirected her from.
To me that looks more like a reward for sitting on the dog. “If I sit on the dog Gramma will find fun stuff for me to do!”
So when she’s done doing fun stuff she goes and sits on the dog again. Why not? Why shouldn’t she? In her mind it’s kinda cool.

I am not sure I can continue with this discussion.

Look, you’re the one who implied you can problem solve with a non verbal kid. So when I asked for an example you redirected me to redirecting. Giving her beans to play with isn’t going to do jack beans to get her to stop sitting on the the dog! Why would it? It might make her forget about at that moment, but so what? As soon as she sees the dog she’ll remember how fun it is to sit on her.

If you are providing your one-year-old access to this dog, you need to be there with her and continue to keep her and the dog safe. The one-year-old is not the problem.

If she crawls to the dog 100 times and you redirect her 100 times, I suspect she’ll be somewhat less likely to head to the dog the 101st time.

@Dutchess_III “To me that looks more like a reward for sitting on the dog. “If I sit on the dog Gramma will find fun stuff for me to do!””

I think the disconnect is that you don’t seem willing to associate anything positive with this training/teaching process, even though you are looking for help with using positive reinforcement. The recommendations are not going to include punishments. That would be outside the parameters of your question.

Is your goal to solve the problem you have with your granddaughter and dog, or to prove that positive reinforcement cannot work in such a situation?

Why would she be less likely just because she’s been redirected 100 times? Why?

And it is not true that I’m not willing to associate anything positive with this process, @dappled_leaves. If you had read the thread you would know that. If you had read the thread you would have seen that I picked up on @longgone‘s suggestion here.

And I repeated it here

So, read the thread.

@Dutchess_III I have read it. So, why do you not recognize @hominid‘s positive reinforcement suggestions as… you know… positive reinforcement?

“Why would she be less likely just because she’s been redirected 100 times? Why?”

Well, he did say somewhat less likely. But even if she’s not, the point is that she learns to trust you, not to fear you. You’ve already acknowledged that your own method does not teach her not to do the “Bad Thing”. After a time, she goes back and does the thing you hit her for. And she knows that you a person who hits her. That, to me, is a greater loss than you seem to realize.

Either way, this is part of a long-term training process. Neither way is going to guarantee instant results. But one builds a relationship built on trust, and the other builds a relationship based on betrayal.

I have to ask @Dutchess_III why you asked the question if you consistently dismiss any suggestions made? This is a frequent pattern with you.

But I haven’t @janbb! Read the thread! I agreed with @longgone‘s suggestions to reinforce her behavior when she’s being sweet to Dakota. But I also have to figure out a way to impress on her that sitting on Dakota is not being sweet.

@dappled_leaves I hardly see creating a new and interesting game for her every time she sits on Dakota as being an effective way to get her to stop sitting on her. I’m sorry if you can’t see how that could back fire.

The only thing redirecting would do is to take her mind off of it for a few minutes until she out grows the desire to sit on the dog….in 2 or 3 years.

I’ll run with @longgone‘s suggestion while figuring how how to get her to understand that sitting on Dakota isn’t good for Dakota. Pretty tall task for a 1 year old.

What’s wrong with saying “no, no, we don’t sit on the dog” and remove her from the dog?

I think with a one year old you have to either decide you’re going to keep removing her from the dog and not be bothered about it or you have to keep the dog and the child separate.

“GET OFF THE DAMN DOG!!!” doesn’t work?

You could provide a distraction and buy her a “special” child sized beanbag to sit on, a distraction from the dog. You could admire the beanbag and give her lots of attention when she is sitting on it. Actually, sitting on a beanbag would not feel too dissimilar to sitting on a dog me thinks. Toddler size beanbags

See, @Dutchess_III, you say you understand positive reinforcement…you really don’t, if you are still looking for a way to “impress on [Zoey] that sitting on Dakota is not being sweet.”

You don’t trust positive reinforcement to work on its own. Which is just plain stupid, and shows that you do not have a lot of experience at all.

PS: I think you may be confused on a certain term: “Negative reinforcement” is not the same as punishment!

Ha ha! I love you man! No, no, @osoraro. That’s too traumatizing, you see. She’ll need counseling and shit when she grows up!

I’d say a swat on the diaper and a loud NO should do the trick, but the NO might scare the dog. I’ll get a lot of flack for this, but after raising my kid, I don’t see too much difference between a 1 year old and a puppy. I don’t advocate beating the kid, but a sound swat on the diaper makes a loud POP sound—enough to startle and catch the kid’s attention and make them THINK they got hurt for a second. I think a quick startle and then a redirection is the best thing.

I know you weren’t asking for advice what to do, but I just think there’s nothing wrong with a stern voice and a single swat now and then.

I agree with you @keobooks.

@longgone In order for your suggestion to work, to focus on praising her when she’s being gentle and kind to the dog, she has to understand that sitting on the dog is NOT being gentle and kind, although she may think it is. Have to be able to compare the two.

That’s a good idea @Adagio. Thanks.

@Dutchess_III – I’m under the impression that you don’t like parenting (or grandparenting). Am I wrong? Normal childhood behavior seems to be a problem that needs an immediate solution. You don’t seem to view the whole experience of raising children as a project.

All that work that some of suggest you put into your grandchild – that’s the good stuff. It’s not busy work to get through. It isn’t a sink that won’t stop dripping. To me, it’s some of the most important and pleasurable “work” that I have ever had the opportunity to do. I feel lucky to have had the opporunity to have my children.

Some people don’t really like children. That’s fine. Late New Year’s resolution for me: do not spend too much time trying to convince people that their cries of hunger are inappropriate because they are sitting at a table full of food.

@hominid

Anyone who knows me knows that I totally love my daughter and I have always loved children. I see raising her as a lifetime project and I love the adventure.

But between 12–18 months, they don’t respond to reason. They frequently don’t even come when called. Sometimes simple 1 – 2 word commands in a loud voice are all they understand enough to respond to. They learn to filter out most talking as being stuff grownups do with each other. You need to be very direct and simple because that’s how their brains work at that age.

As for the swat, it’s not to be a pain thing, but a startling thing. Because for some kids, words aren’t enough. They need a physical sensation to get their attention. Just like mother dogs sometimes lightly step on their puppies and give them a little nip when they get too aggressive in play or try to nurse when mother dog isn’t into it.

Not ALL kids need swats, btw. Congratulations for being lucky enough to never need to do it. But my daughter needed it a few times. Four to be exact, I believe. I remember each time I had to do it. In my case it was because she was doing something that would have caused more pain to her if I let her do it (touching the stove, running in the street) and she needed immediate physical sensation to stop her.

wow

Perhaps you had odd children who came with fully developed brains and could understand adult reasoning at birth.

I don’t like kids. BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

Just curious to know, @hominid . Were you the primary caregiver for your children at that age? Were you with them 5–7 days a week every week during the day? How much time do you think you spent with your kids on a daily basis? Do you know the full extent of what happened during the day when your kids were growing up? Or did you just come home from work and see them a few hours before they went to bed?

Because even my friends who are 100% against spanking don’t respond like you. THEY understand that all kids are different and need different ways of discipline. My daughter was/still is unusually headstrong and when she was very little, she needed extra reinforcement FOUR times in her life. (Yes FOUR times and that is it)

@keobooks – I’ll give you a rough idea how much time I have (and continue to) spend with my kids.

- For the first 4 months of being a parent, I worked from home and had 5 weeks of vacation that I took.
– I then was laid off and spent 9 months as full-time dad.
– I have worked full-time since then, going in at 6am so I could be home early for my kids. 10 years of this I had the option (which I took) to work from home.)
– When I got home, I would immediately take over as primary caregiver.
– It was my job to feed my children.
– It was my job to bathe my children.
– The 5.5 – 6 hours or so hours per day after I got home from work were spent caring for and playing with my children. Nothing else. There was no tv in my house.
– I have read books to my kids in bed every night for the past 12 years.
– We co-slept with the kids for many years, so I was with them all night.
– Every single weekend I spent all day and night with my children (that’s a minimum of 104 days per year, not including long weekends).
– I get 4 weeks of vacation (5 this coming year), and every one of those has been spent with my children.
– For the past 3 years, I have been essentially a single dad. My wife was in nursing school + working, so I have seen her very little. It’s been just the kids and I every evening and every weekend.

Anyway, I find it interesting that you suspect that more exposure to children would convince me that parenting is not worthwhile – and that I should shift my entire intention with my children.

A friend of mine did his post-doc in Missouri and would often tell me that I live in a bubble here in Massachusetts. I suppose I didn’t truly believe it – or want to believe it. But I get the impression from discussions here that maybe I do.

Positive reinforcement only works when it is applied, initially, at the appropriate age. If you wait too long, it is useless. And positive reinforcement doesn’t always mean a reward, just positive results. A swiftly produced and amply applied rolled up newspaper should work nicely!

I understand that @kritiper.

@Dutchess_III Nope, that’s just plain wrong. When I’m training my dog to close a door, I do not first need to teach him not to do everything he could be doing at the same time – sniffing the floor, pawing at me, wagging his tail, barking…all I need to do is wait until he does a step in the right direction, and then make him glad he did.

That is the essence of positive reinforcement: There are a million things Zoey should not be doing with Dakota. Addressing them all is not possible. On the other hand, there are only a few things Zoey can safely do with Dakota, and teaching those is much easier.

If you only teach her what not to do, three things will happen:

1. She might be less likely to sit on Dakota.
2. She will still have to keep guessing what it is you do want her to do.
3. Your relationship will become a bit weaker every time you hurt her. It does not matter whether the pain is only in her mind. Her mind is her reality.

If you only teach her what to do, two things will happen:

1. She will know what it is you want from her.
2. Every time you show her the world, safely, you are becoming a more important person to her. You’re trustworthy.

Key to positive reinforcement is, as I’ve said a few times, prevention. You need to be in there with those two. Keep in mind that Dakota is learning, too. The pain Zoey is unwittingly causing is punishment, to Dakota. She has no idea what she did wrong, but she will start to dread Zoey’s approach, maybe even all children. Whether that causes her to bite, no-one knows. It’s unlikely at this point, likely at some point. At any point, however, it would not be her fault. Even the best dog can only take so much.

@keobooks

“Between 12–18 months, they don’t respond to reason. They frequently don’t even come when called.”

Why should they? Who’s explained they are supposed to?

“As for the swat, it’s not to be a pain thing, but a startling thing.”

What good could possibly come from you, the parent, startling your kid? Why would you want that kind of relationship?

“They need a physical sensation to get their attention.”

How about a hug?

“Just like mother dogs sometimes lightly step on their puppies and give them a little nip when they get too aggressive in play or try to nurse when mother dog isn’t into it.”

Very bad example, as well-socialized mother dogs are, actually, masters at benevolent leading. They do not step in when their puppies are fighting, eating junk food, or annoying other people. Puppies learn from the world, and when there is real danger anywhere, the mother dog is body blocking them. That’s all.

“In my case it was because she was doing something that would have caused more pain to her if I let her do it (touching the stove, running in the street) and she needed immediate physical sensation to stop her.”

She needed to be hit so she would stop? I assume you were stronger than her, couldn’t you have simply restrained her kindly?

“Who’s explained they are supposed to? Oh, that was funny!

@longgone I just need to ask…do you have any kids? It just doesn’t sound like you’ve had much real life experience with them.

@Dutchess_III: ”@longgone I just need to ask…do you have any kids? It just doesn’t sound like you’ve had much real life experience with them.”

I don’t think @longgone does have kids, although I could be wrong. But s/he sure sounds to me like s/he has had plenty of experience with kids.

This is the second appeal to experience late in this thread. Please don’t.

Experience is very important. People always have this idea of how THEY’LL raise their kids when they have them, and that invariably changes after they actually have them.

@Dutchess_III: “Experience is very important. People always have this idea of how THEY’LL raise their kids when they have them, and that invariably changes after they actually have them.”

Of course experience is important. But you have experience, and seem to be incapable of seeing that there is another way. Experience is helpful, but it shouldn’t be used to dismiss legitimate argument. @longgone is answering in a thoughtful way that is consistent with the experience of the rest of us who don’t hit our kids – those evil liberal atheists who take parenting seriously and occasionally eat babies. All I’m saying is that don’t start using the “when you have kids” argument when you’re down. Just keep hitting your kids or whatever they do out there. Just keep in mind that there are large parts of this country where this doesn’t happen. At all. It’s possible. The science supports it. And I would argue that it’s better for all of us if it would just stop.

From that childs first sip of mothers milk, she has been learning things from day one. That milk tasted sweet and gave a positive reinforcement in her brain by a chemical reaction. It’s automatic and for every good thing even a one week old experiences the chemical reaction release of Dopamine…a very powerful good feeling chemical in the brain which is evolutions way of ensuring we learn enough good things to survive. The pain response is just the opposite. pain is natures way of telling us even at one week old that was bad and to avoid doing that again.

So I suspect the first time this child sat on the dog…someone went “OH LOOK”! How CUTE she is and that moment was etched in her brain…the smile of that person saying Oh Look, the fuzzy feeling of the dogs fur…all the sights and sounds of that happy moment. I bet there is even a picture chronicling that first time. The easy way to neutralize that good feeling would be a swat to induce a pain response and some stern direct words to not do that anymore. That would be very confusing to a one year old mind and I would not recommend it. Hence you have left the positive reinforcement strategy where you recognize preferred behavior with exalted praise and hopefully generate happy chemical reactions in her brain that will get her to repeat these preferred behaviors.

Possibly, @Cruiser. Lots of kids have sat on the dog, and it is cute. It wasn’t until she yelped that time that I realized it has to stop, and it has to stop now. And it will. Dad and I got together on the best course of action, and he too suggested swats on her diaper. (He was also anti-swating until this one came along!)

@hominid We have had this discussion so many times. I know there are alternate ways, especially when the kids get older. None of my kids got a swat after about the age of 3. I used alternate ways.
I also used swats only in extreme situations where they, or someone else (in this case the Dog) could get hurt if they didn’t learn, and learn quickly, not to do something.

@keobooks is one of the best moms I know, and her kid is SO delightful! Except she is TERRIFIED of her mother. Yeah. Right.

You know, I could resort to a spray bottle of water!

@Dutchess_III Do you have anything relevant to say, other than “that was funny”? How about responding to my post directed at you?

My question was a serious one. How should a child know s/he is to come when called? @keobooks brought this up as “evidence” that children do not see reason. I don’t understand how that is a good example. Children are not hard-wired to come running when they hear their name. They don’t even know their name is anything other than a funny sound, at first.

I do not have children of my own, which I believe I have discussed with you, multiple times. It’s getting old, but I will say it again: I have a lot of experience with children. You have definitely spent more time with kids, though, because you are older than I am. However, I am not only working with my own experience here. My sources are my parents and grandparents, who dealt with children in a way you can’t really understand, apparently. I am also quoting from the experience my great-granddad had, founding a free school. And lastly, I am using the knowledge I acquired from books by authors like Jesper Juul and A.S. Neill. Disregard my arguments, if you want to – but understand they are not purely mine. They are supported by decades of parenting and quite a bit of solid science.

This is the internet. I could tell you I raised seventeen kids – would you be more likely to listen to my advice if I did that? I’m guessing you might, but it would be pretty foolish. Raising a child means nothing at all, unless you actually raise it well. I know you are very proud of how you raised your children, but to me, that does not mean you are an authority. Actually, it makes me think you may be biased. We like to believe we did well.

A compelling argument, on the other hand, would make me think twice. You don’t have many of those.

So, yep, that’s my decision. Of course I will also make a big positive deal out of when she’s being nice to the dog (thanks @longgone) so I’ll be coming at it from two directions. One she won’t like and one she will. That way, she can come to her own decision.
I imagine I’ll have the problem fixed by the end of the day.

^ Because that worked last time. ~

It worked for a while. I wanted to get with Dad before I did anything more. At this point I’ve been a bit inconsistent, which is never good when dealing with kids, but I won’t be after this. She will learn that if she does A then B will happen. There will be no doubt in her mind. She won’t feel the need to keep testing to see if it’s really going to happen again, because she will know that it will.

Edited, good self-control…

…due to stellar parenting.

Oh.

After reading this, I called CPS on myself and my daughter is now gone. I am a terrible mother for swatting my daughter on the diaper at all, let alone 4 times in my life. I am writing this from a prison cell, where I am now awaiting execution. My daughter will survive, but not without terrible scars of childhood. They say with intense therapy, she may one day be able to speak my name without screaming in terror. But I just hope for the best.

Well, that’s fairly dramatic. Have you never heard debate before about corporal punishment? No need to get upset. I’d recommend you check out the medical organizations’ positions on corporal punishment (like the American Academy of Pediatrics). There plenty of decent people you may have met that have not been hit and do not hit their children. No need to take offense. Just do a little reading on it…....

LOL @keobooks! I know. My children still aren’t speaking to me. But they keep dropping their kids off with me to babysit. But other than that, they aren’t speaking to me because of the horrible mother I was growing up.

@hominid , I thought your interpreting my post to you to mean “more exposure to children would convince me that parenting is not worthwhile” as you said. Why on EARTH would you get that from my post? Do you think that I don’t think parenting is worthwhile because I gave my child a swat or two? How arrogant. You assume dutchess doesn’t like children because she has a different opinion than you have about a mild swat on the diaper the kid can’t even feel? How absurdly arrogant.

My point was that if you really spent a long time as a stay at home parent, you’d understand that every kid is different and people do things different ways. You seem to be the one that thinks there is only one way to parent all children. Other parents I know seem to get this. You don’t. So I assumed that you didn’t really get into the nitty gritty of parenting enough to know sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do or never expected you to do.

I know. And he somehow came to the conclusion that I don’t like being a parent OR a grandparent. SMH.

@keobooks and @Dutchess_III I believe @hominid was referring to your apparent surprise at completely normal behaviour of a child. It’s like adopting a puppy, leaving it alone on its first day, and then being surprised at its peeing on the floor.

I’m not surprised at her behavior. It needs to change though.

I guess I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how you and he came away with that impression.

What surprise are you talking about? And why would he talk about my finding parenthood not worthwhile as a way to talk about my being surprised in anyway.

Exactly where is the surprise here?

Btw, I’m not even going to address your other post to me because it was very naive and very obvious that you don’t have kids. No matter how much time you spend with them, living with them full time is different.

No, she has no kids. But she has perfectly behaved dogs, so she knows all about it.

Wow. Talk about being condescending. Done here.

But that’s the only thing you refer to, is your well behaved dogs. You have yet to give us one example, that you experienced of dealing with a child under the age of 3, and how you handled it and what the outcome was.

@longgone Honestly, did you expect any better?

Just looking through this thread again. It looks like many people don’t actually know what positive and negative reinforcement mean. Positive doesn’t mean “good” and negative “bad”

Positive reinforcement means that an action is reinforced by giving something to the subject. Be it a treat OR a swat. Oldschool behaviorists would give treats to rats for doing one behavior and gave them a zap of electricity for another. Both were considered to be positive reinforcement because they added an element in the rats world in order to get it to perform (or not perform) a certain way.

Negative reinforcement means that you try to diminish a behavior by taking away something—this can be taking away attention (ignoring) or taking away the focus (asking duchess to just put the dog in a far away room until the kid’s old enough to understand not to sit on her.

It’s a peeve of mine when people use the phrase positive reinforcement incorrectly.

@keobooks “Positive reinforcement means that an action is reinforced by giving something to the subject. Be it a treat OR a swat.”

Now I really have heard everything.

Well, either way it’s reinforcement!

@dappled_leaves Read BF Skinner and then you’ll have read everything as well as hearing it,

@keobooks: “Read BF Skinner”

Well at least you admit it.

@keobooks “Just looking through this thread again. It looks like many people don’t actually know what positive and negative reinforcement mean. Positive doesn’t mean “good” and negative “bad”

Positive reinforcement means that an action is reinforced by giving something to the subject. Be it a treat OR a swat.”

There is nothing positive in a swat unless you view unleashing your frustration through the palm of your hand on a child’s rear end is a positive outcome. A true positive outcome is when a parent uses their gray matter to engineer action and results from their children as opposed to using violence on a child to amplify their laziness and inability to raise their own child to behave good and expected in most situations. No parent has been 100% in this area and my guess as to why @Dutchess_III took the time to ask this question.

I was against spanking until I had my daughter and she kept running into the streets over and over and over. I wrote to some friends of mine and asked what to do, because it was at the point that I didn’t want to go outside into my own yard anymore because I was too tired to chase my daughter over and over and over. Someone suggested that I give her one single swat the next time she did it. So it was planned. I wasn’t angry and didn’t unleash frustration. I just gave her one swat and said “NO!” at the same time. She never ran in the street again.

I didn’t want to to that, but all of the feel-good junk people suggested to get her not to run in the streets was NOT working at all. She thought it was a game until she heard the loud POP of the diaper. She looked surprised and bewildered for about 30 seconds and then she was OK and running in the opposite direction. She didn’t even cry.

Please explain to me how this was not using my brain but simply unleashing my anger on my child. Please show me the violence. Highlight it and quote it back, because I don’t see it.

It’s not an unleashing of frustration, @Cruiser. At least not in my situation or in @keobooks. In the end, the swat does have a positive outcome, at least as far a stopping particular behaviors quickly. I don’t have the time to pull her off the dog 100 times. It needs to stop now.

I agree, swats should only be used for serious situations, such as this one, and the others as keobooks mentioned. They don’t hurt and they do work.

I took the time to ask this question because @longgone suggested I somehow use positive reinforcement to change Zoey’s behavior. However, while her suggestion, that I make a big deal out of petting Dakota, or loving on her was a good one, it doesn’t address the the fact that it doesn’t discourage her from SITTING on her. For all she knows, this is a loving thing to do to Dakota, and in times past, when Dakota was young and strong, it wasn’t a problem.
How do I praise her sweet treatment of the dog, while impressing her with the need to not SIT on the dog?

Oh, @keobooks. don’t you understand that you were a bad Mom because you weren’t within 4 feet of your child at all times?

@keobooks Your child was running into the street because she either didn’t know any better or was wanting your attention. In your own words…. “because I was too tired to chase my daughter over and over” That is IMHO and not judging you, but where as a parent and a parent that also used a swat as an “attention getter” that in retrospect I allowed my emotions to employ the swat instead of taking ownership of my child’s incorrect behavior. Counting to 10 under your breath works wonders to giving time to rethink how you could have both prevented their unwanted actions and had a positive outcome instead of a negative reinforcement….that is where the gray matter part comes in and I encourage all parents tired or not to use it.

Counting to 10 while they are running on the street? You DO realize how fast a car is, right? I guess if she got hit, that would be a valuable life lesson as well.

Well, getting hit would be a natural consequence, and far more painful, even deadlier, than a logical consequence that doesn’t hurt but makes an impression.

She said it worked. So well played @keobooks.

The reason I know how many times I’ve had to give a single spank is that my husband and I talked about it and planned it beforehand every time it happened. We would agree that a certain situation called for it. Once we agreed on it, I was the one who gave her a single swat on the diaper. There was no heat of the moment or rash anger being unleashed. Once she was a little bit over two and could speak full sentences, we stopped the spanks. She’s now 4 and hasn’t had one since. I think she survived all four of those swats quite well.

I do like that she’s old enough to talk about her behavior. I still pick her up and carry her away from whatever she’s doing now and then, but she doesn’t need a swat. She can communicate well enough now we don’t need stuff like that.

i don’t regret it and I’d likely give three of those four swats if I had to do it all over again. Most people comment that I’m one of the most patient parents they know. I’m not the greatest by far, but I will say that I’m very patient and think about everything before I do it. I plan these things out. Almost nothing gets me mad and so long as she’s not hurting herself or others, I don’t get bothered.

She’s very well behaved and articulate about her feelings. I think she makes it almost too easy for me. I don’t really have to do much in the way of discipline at all. I think if those four swats had damaged her psyche, this wouldn’t be as pleasant as it currently is.

@keobooks You are missing my point. Any parent knows what it is like to be tired, exhausted and at your wits end and probably on a daily basis especially with little ones. Go ahead and beat your kids if that is your way of dealing with being a parent and a tired one at that. I won’t stop you. The OP was asking for insight and I offered her mine. You solution of beating your kid because you are doing a lousy job as a parent because you were “too tired” is IMHO a very poor suggestion for @Dutchess_III situation.

wow, that’s harsh

You just said I beat my child. You equate a single swat on a well padded child to a beating. Well, what can I say to that?

Oh, and thanks for calling me a lousy parent while you were at it.

Once again @keobooks YOUR words not mine… “The reason I know how many times I’ve had to give a single spank “Many times is a good example that you are lacking control over whatever the situation is and why counting to 10 will give you pause to rethink your next action…as a parent. Of course grabbing your kid before they become a hood ornament in traffic is high priority and count to ten while you dash after them. ;)

Where did I say beating? Where did I say lousy parent? Please show me.

Oh and I said HOW many times (4). I did not say MANY times.

If I can say I did a crap job with my kid only 4 times in her life and the worst thing I did was give her one swat on the diaper, I’d say I was the best parent who ever lived. There are so many different ways to screw up, God help me, I hope that’s the worst thing anyone ever has to say about me.

@keobooks Even if you said 4 which you didn’t…I am offering my insight as a parent and my own experience as a parent that there is ALWAYS a better choice than swatting. Unfortunately many kids do get a beating instead of a swatting because a parent is “too tired” to make a better choice in that situation.

Really? This thread is still going on?
Remove the child from riding the dog, say No, No, you will hurt the dog and be done.
If you take all this time to redirect the kids attention, you will be giving the dog time to be hurt by kid and potentially bite her. I know you have said many times that the dog has not bitten anyone, but the dog will/can react differently if hurt by someone. Why is this such a big deal?
Remove kid from dog.

Sorry. I’m the worst parent who ever lived. Cruiser knows best. I’m going out behind the woodpile and off myself.

PS. I mentioned in several posts in this thread that I did it 4 times. Sorry if I didn’t make it even more clear when I said “three of the four times” but I was too tired after a long day of beating my child half to death. You know how it is. Well, I guess you don’t because you’re not a lousy parent like me.

@keobooks You don’t sound in the least like the worst parent who ever lived, nothing like it, you sound like an extremely loving mother, what more could any child need. You are doing a wonderful job : ^)

@keobooks we can trade war stories of who is the worst parent after your child tries to commit suicide for the second time like mine did. I will join you behind the wood shed.

@chyna Of course I remove the kid from the dog and say “No no. You could hurt the dog.” However, unlike her almost 2 year old cousin, she doesn’t really comprehend what I’m saying, so I turn around and she’s sitting on the dog again. Need to find a way for her to decide for herself that she doesn’t want to sit on the dog because (insert consequence.)

@keobooks Is an awesome parent! And her kid is an awesome kid. I look forward to her kid stories as much as I look forward to sharing my kid stories.

I heard you loud and clear, @keobooks.
Swat on diaper does not = beating.
Swat on diaper does not = hurting.
Swat on diaper DOES = attention and remembering.

From what I’ve read here and on FB, I agree that @keobooks is a great mother and doing a wonderful job in raising her daughter.

Making a long-lasting impression, even through scaring a kid, is a worthwhile endeavor, especially when used sparingly.

When my oldest was 14 her Dad moved to Seattle and took her with him (and he’s an asshole.) I fought for 2 years to get her back home, but he dug in his heels. Even though he’d kicked her out, and she was on the streets, when I got a plane ticket home for her, he put up a fight.

When she was 16 I got a call. He said he was sending her back because she was pregnant. He said, “You’re more stable than I am.” No shit, asshole.

Fast forward to when her son was about 3. He knew not to go in the street. However, one day I had dropped her off at a friends house because she needed to talk to them for a moment. I was sitting in the the car, waiting on her. She was chatting in the yard with her friend, and had her son with her, but she wasn’t paying any attention to him. She wasn’t glancing around out of habit every few seconds, like she should have been

Ryan started wandering away from her, glancing back every so often, to see if she would notice, which she did not. I watched this whole thing unfold like I was at a drive in. He wandered to the street and stood on the curb for a moment, looking at the street at his feet, trying to decide if he should step out into the street.

What he didn’t realize was that he was in front of my car, and I was at the wheel, hand on the horn
.
He made the decision to step into the street.

The instant his foot hit the asphalt I laid on my horn, and it was in his face!! Scared the living shit out of him and his mom! As it was meant to. Ryan threw himself back in the yard, and fell on his butt, and his Mom finally paid attention and came running over in a panic.

My daughter was really angry with me for scaring him like that. (Actually, she was angry with me for scaring her like that.)

I said, “You BOTH needed to be scared! That COULD have actually been a car bearing down on him. That’s what you thought when you heard the horn, isn’t it!”
She yelled, “Yes I thought he was going to get hit by a car, but he wasn’t and it was so MEAN of you to make me think he was!” That’s me. The Mean Momma.

They both learned a lesson that day, although my daughter never admitted it. He never tested the street boundary again, and my daughter became a lot more vigilant.

This story answers @longgone‘s question of “Why would you be so “mean” as to startle your child?”
The answer: “To save them from possible future, possibly deadly, consequences of making a bad decision, especially when they’re on their own.”

Here is a drawing of a person holding a balloon.

LOLL! Thank you @hominid! Although he is obviously holding the balloon wrong! BEAT HIM!

Just to clarify – and correct – something that @keobooks had said earlier in the thread that puzzled and confused me: positive reinforcement, as I’ve seen it defined, is a type of conditioning meant to increase the likelihood of a type of behavior. So there is no “bad consequence” used in positive reinforcement. You wouldn’t use, for example, electric shock as a consequence of an action in “positive reinforcement”. (I’m not saying that negative consequences don’t work; I’m only saying “that’s not positive reinforcement”.)

Moreover, as it is used in child rearing – and I also have experience in this area – you would use positive reinforcement and like methods to “guide” expected and desired behaviors in non-critical situations. It’s a great way to teach manners, good habits, attitude, persistence and other attributes of good living in nominally safe situations. I would never use something as passive as this, though, to teach a child not to walk in the street or avoid touching a hot stove. No. When we’re talking of the possibility of major injury, life-or-death consequences, nothing beats sharp vigilance, proximity to the child and direct control, in addition to other potential (lesser) consequences, such as a sharp word, a strong pull, an angry look or even a swat on the bottom. But those are obviously not “positive reinforcement”.

Positive reinforcement is smiling at the child when she plays nicely with the dog, or rewarding her when she sits next to the dog and talks to it, or praising her when she climbs on things that are meant for climbing and are not dogs. When she stands next to the dog, turns around and gets ready to sit down is not the time for “positive reinforcement”. That’s woo-woo magic parenting (or grand-parenting) that does not work, is not effective, and is a misuse of the technique of positive reinforcement.

So you could use positive reinforcement to help guide the child in behaviors that you want, but when she starts to do something that can cause her severe injury or death, you simply stop her from doing that. You can’t talk her out of that, or jolly her or distract her (unless you’re so far away that that is your only option). Positive reinforcement will only help you to guide the child to be the child you want her to be; it won’t save her life in a moment of crisis. That’s why I first pointed out that there was a fundamental flaw in your world view. So, okay, it’s not your world view that’s the problem, but perhaps your writing or your intent to use positive reinforcement to save a child’s life or body.

I have to agree…if it makes the child uncomfortable, if it makes them want to avoid the consequence, then it’s a negative for the kid, but the end result is a positive.

I think positive reinforcement is used more to teach a child to DO something. Potty training is a good venue for positive reinforcement.

Conversely, negative reinforcement is used to teach a child NOT to do something. Not to run out in the street, not to sit on the dog, not to take another kid’s toy. It can be as simple as “No, don’t do that. Don’t take.” Those are negative words, but used to create a positive outcome.

I was wrong about my old Skinner lesson anyway.

Positive just means adding something. It’s the REINFORCEMENT that makes it “good” You’re giving something to encourage behavior you want to see repeated.

Negative means taking away something and negative reinforcement rarely happens in parenting. That’s where you take away something dislikeable to encourage behavior you want to see. Like constantly zapping a rat until they press a button. Then the zapping stops. So the poor rat is constantly pressing the button to keep the shocks away.

Positive PUNISHMENT is adding something to the environment to diminish behavior you don’t want to see. Like a swat or a spray bottle for an animal.

Negative punishment is when you take something away from the environment to diminish the behavior you dont want to see.

-

Spray bottles work on kids, too! Lol! But it didn’t occur to me when my kids were little. Apparently it works tho!

My daughter LOVES getting squirted with a spray bottle. That would be a reward for her.

LOL! My yupid Dutchess log loves lemon juice. She was introduced to it when an old user here, RedPowerLady, suggested using it as a deterrent so she’d stop barking madly at the leaves and everything else. It didn’t work.

I had the 7 year old kid who does annoying shit to get negative attention today.

He had a homework assignment on problem solving. His teacher had given him 2 copies, probably accidentally.
Here was the clue: STEP

S say the problem
T think of solutions
E explore the consequences (could something go wrong?)
P pick the best solution.

So we reviewed it, and it was obvious his teacher had gone over it with them that day. The first two went fine. He answered instantly and clearly, and he got happy faces from me beside the descriptions.

Then we got to E.
“OK, what does the E stand for?”
“Um, say the problem?” And he started mumbling so you couldn’t understand him and putting weird endings on his words, like problemUH.
“No. That is S. This is E.”
“Um, think of solutionsUH?”

I said, “I’m not doing this,” and walked away. He can drag these things on for hours, but I don’t care if he does. I have other things to do anyway.
So I’m working on a application for an HR position and he’s going “Gramma, I don’t know what it is!” Well, he does. He has practically a photographic memory.
So I’m not answering.
He brings the paper to me and said, “Is it think of solutionsUH?”
I told him to go back to the table and went out on the deck.
On the way back in he started whining again and I just walked on. Then he yelled, “Explore the solutions???!!”
I said, “Yes.” He was sad that he didn’t get a happy face on that one.
I said, “What is P.”
“Um, explore the solutionsUH?”

I walked away. Went back to my application, mainly because I was getting pissed and I didn’t want him to see that. After I’d chilled, I went back in. I took the pencil from his hand, set it on the table, and told him to PICK it up.
“Now, what does the P stand for?”
“Uh..pink? Play?”
I started to walk away again. And he quickly said, “Pick the best solution??!”
“Yes,” I said.

Then, at the bottom there was a writing exercise.

S ____ ___ ____
T ____ ___ ____ _
E ____ ___ ____ __
P ____ ___ ____ ____

First two he said right away, so I printed them out on a piece of paper so he could just copy the words.

But he started in with the exact same games on the E and the P again.
So I left.

And 5 minutes later, after ignoring his requests for help, I went back in and said, “This is the last time. I’m not going to let you finish your homework if you start in again. Your choice.”

So he quickly listed the right answers and I wrote them down.

He tried to say once that he didn’t remember how to make an e, but I ignored him.

As I walked past at one point,as he was working, I said, ‘You want some jello when you’re done?”
He said, “Sure!”
And suddenly he was done!

I said, “Good job. But I KNOW your handwriting is better than this!” It was all over the place, wandering up and down, some letters huge, some letters so small that you couldn’t tell what they were. Anyway I got his jello and went back to my application.

I don’t know what tripped in him, but suddenly, there he was. He had filled out the second one from copying the first…and it was PERFECT! The letters looked like they’d been typed! (I’m exaggerating but it was awesome.)

I squealed “That is FANTASTIC! I can’t wait to show your Dad! In fact, I’m going to post it on Facebook!!!”
His eyes got wide and he said, “Really?”
“Well, yeah! It is THAT good!” And I gave him a hug!

Well, I wanted him to leave the first one the way it was so I could compare, but I didn’t say anything to him. The next thing I know he has erased all the sloppy writing on the first one and re-did THAT one too!

The last two times he did it it took less than 5 minutes each.

It had been 2 hours from start to finish.

I know. TL/DNR. But I’m just so tickled at the way it ended that I wanted to vent so I’m using this as a journal!

” I wanted to vent so I’m using this as a journal!”

This is not news.

Must you always be so cranky and negative?

Thank you for your character assessment. People who actually know me would disagree.

Fluther is not a journal. Perhaps you can join a group where they discuss their families.

Ok you guys. Settle down. Don’t get the Fluther chopping block fired up.
My “journal” comment was a back door way of apologizing for the length of the post. I try to keep them short because I know I hate it when I’m faced with a wall of words. However, some people have what it takes to read long-ass stuff, and this incident is relevant to this thread. The situation included negative reinforcement (ignoring, NO attention,) choices, and a blaze of positive reinforcement at the end. The results were most excellent.

If you don’t want to read it all, just ignore it. There is no point in entering snarky comments for no other reason than to enter snarky comments.

I too would suggest that you start a blog about your grandchildren.

Never thought I’d be the one to support @Dutchess_III (right Dutchess?) but this is her question. Why would it be a problem for her to share a relevant story on her own thread? Can we at least give her a break on her own Q?

Fluther is so dead. Do we really want to alienate anyone else?

Love ya ladies

I have, @gailcalled. Here. This question isn’t as much about my grandkids as it is about methods of disciplines and my most recent post was about discipline.

♥ @jonsblond. Thank you. The voice of logic and reason in the overtaking wilderness.

Update: I didn’t have Zoes last week because her Dad was off work. However I did have her for a couple of hours on Friday so he could attend a meeting. She sat on the dog. The reaction was immediate. I pulled her up and suddenly a loud POP emanated from her well diapered butt and I got down on her level, looked her right in the eye and said, “_DO. NOT. SIT. ON. THE. DOG.” Her eyes flew opened wide in surprise.

This week I had her my regular two days…and she did not sit on the dog one time. :D At one point Dakota was lying on her side and Zoes sat on the floor, between Dakota’s front and back legs, and leaned against her. She looked up at me with question in her eyes, and I said, “That’s fine. You can lean on her. It’s OK.” Apparently she wasn’t traumatized enough to not test the boundary.

For those of you who would like to believe I destroyed my relationship with her, consider this: The next day, Saturday, after the swat on Friday, Rick and I went to visit. They were all downstairs when we arrived. Rick went down stairs several seconds ahead of me. When Zoey saw Grandpa she held her arms up and ran toward him. Then I came around the corner and there was a slight, but instant change in trajectory, and she stumped right past grampa and into my arms. :D Grampa has never once disciplined her in any way, so go figure.

Now, to get her to stop digging all of the dirt out of the plant that was given to me when my Mom died! No, I do not consider this a swatting offense so take a deep breath and relax. Although I accidentally stumbled upon a method that might work!

You seem to have solved your discipline problems all by yourself.

Well, I administered it all by myself. I agreed with @keobook’s method. And @osoraro. A bit of a shock can go a long way in a serious situation, although I do expect her to test it at least one more time to find out if the same thing is going to happen.

Like I said, if she was 2 it would have been a whole different story, but I didn’t have a year to wait until I could reason with her.