Meltdown Mastery: The Listening and Skilled Toddler Mini Course

 Struggling with Milestones or Behavior:

Quicker and smaller wins. Also take the pressure of yourself as well, you are doing so much! and so amazing! When you do that  you take the pressure off your toddler too.

-Quick wins

-Make expectation smaller, break things down smaller

-Catch those positive moments when your little one is doing what you want and praise it! (this only takes you seconds)

-when possible, RP method (request/praise) (e.g. “put the ball in the hoop”/”great job putting the ball in the hoop!”)

-Stick to firm boundaries and consequences, ABC Method. (e.g. “We throw the balls in the hoop”/”When we throw the ball at the window the ball goes bye bye”/adult removes ball from environment so child can’t throw it)

In this video above, I show how a child can go from an unwanted behavior "marking car with chalk" to using chalk appropriately on the ground. This example shows how to focus attention on how to correctly play with a toy.

In this video above, I show how asking a child to clean up or help after he started throwing puzzle pieces was a quick and effective way to get his attention on something else "cleaning up and helping" and taking the focus off the unwanted behavior of throwing puzzle pieces. 

In this video, something upsetting happens. The children are too close and lacking personal space. This escalated to one child starting to bite the other child. If continued this would become a full blown meltdown. The 2 second strategy used here was advocating with action and modeling communication, "I need space".