Lead Her Not Into Temptation
Q. Our 16-month-old daughter recently started climbing and getting into lots of things that are “off limits.” We have tried popping her hand whenever she picks up something we don’t want her to handle, but that doesn’t seem to faze her and often makes her even more determined! How would you suggest we go about keeping her out of mischief?
A. The most effective way is to remove the potential for mischief. It’s called child-proofing, the idea of which is to: 1) bar the child’s access to anything potentially dangerous, and 2) remove from the child’s reach anything expensive.
Child-proofing not only protects valuables as well as the child, but also opens as much of the home as possible to the child’s explorations.
Start by going through every room in your home listing things you don’t want your daughter getting into. Buy child-proof latches for lower cabinets, and child-proof covers for electrical outlets and gates to prevent the child from entering certain rooms or climbing (or falling down) staircases.
Then put things down at your daughter’s level that she can explore. Give her a cabinet of her own in the kitchen, for instance, and stock it with things like wooden spoons, pots, empty thread spools and boxes, flexible straws and anything else that might fascinate her.
If you child-proof well, you should be able to let your daughter roam the house with much less supervision than you’ve had to provide to date. Around age 30 months, you can begin slowly restoring your home to its previously decorated state.
Introduce one valuable at a time, first letting your daughter see and feel the item, then putting it where it belongs and letting her know it’s not a plaything. The discrimination between “can touch” and “can’t touch” is easily made at this age, as long as parents don’t introduce too many interesting things at any one time.
By the way, a tip for parents of toddlers when the youngster picks up something fragile, like a piece of Waterford crystal: The child is almost certain to drop and break the item if an adult puts on a horrified expression, says “Give me that!” and moves rapidly toward the child with arms outstretched, hands open like claws. Panic breeds panic.
Instead, control your fears, stay in one spot, squat so you’re at eye level with the child, put a smile on your face, extend your hand palm-up and say, “Ooooh, how pretty! Will you put it in my hand so I can see, too?”
If you do a good acting job, the child will smile in return and place the item gently in your palm. Then let the child know this wasn’t a trick by putting her on your lap and examining the object together for a minute or so before getting up and saying, “I’m going to put this up here so we can both look at it. Isn’t it pretty?”
This procedure satisfies the child’s curiosity, saves money and helps build a cooperative, rather than an antagonistic, parent-child relationship.
xxxx
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond The Charlotte Observer