He knows the rule. He breaks it anyway. (hitting the baby, throwing food, & diaper changes)

In today's episode, I invite you into my real-time coaching session with a mom of a 2-year-old and a new baby. Watching her son go from kissing his brother to swiping at him in a single second is nothing but frustrating for this mom. He can recite every rule and then break each one, looking her dead in the eye.

Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high structure, high nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home.

If you're tired of the warnings, the lectures, and the guilt at the end of the day with your toddler, this episode is for you.

So I am 3 months postpartum. I have a 3-month-old and a fresh 2-year-old. I am still on maternity leave. I go back to work next week. And so I think it's a mixture of the transition between him being 2 and what they call the terrible twos. But then I really think for the most part it's just, you know, like the transition of having a new brother in his life. And I think a lot of it comes down to the attention that he's trying to get from me. And so there are 3 situations that come to mind that are giving me a difficult time with him. The first one is he loves his brother. And I always say when people ask me like, how is he with his brother? I always say like 97% of the time he's good. The other 3% is the toddler unpredictability and the fact that he can go from, you know, kissing him one second in the bouncer to swiping at him or hitting him or putting the bouncer all the way down and, you know, slingshotting him. Within a second. He knows the rule. That's the thing. Like he really understands no, no means no. Gentle. Like I demonstrate, you know, not too high. Let's show you how to do it. And I'll, you know, bounce it up and down, up and down. And he'll repeat back to me. He'll say, up and down, up and down. And he'll go nice and slow. And then all of a sudden, you know, either I'm not looking entirely or he's just testing me and he'll just You know, bounce it extra hard so that his brother is like flopping all over. Mm-hmm. And then I'm kind of at that situation where I'm like, do I give him a warning? Sometimes I'll say like, if you continue to do that, I'm gonna take you away from him. So that kind of ties into a different situation where he's sitting in the high chair eating a bunch of food and he's eating really nicely. He knows the rule, food stays on the tray or goes in your mouth. And then he'll say it to me during the course of the meal, like food stays on the tray, in your mouth. And then he'll go, uh-oh, food on the floor. You, you don't want food on the floor. I'm putting food on the floor. And then it very quickly escalates into a mealtime that is just not fun. He loves to clean, so a lot of the time it just ends up with, I don't know if he's doing it because he likes to clean, so like the punishment, quote unquote, is that he gets to clean it up.

Sure.

So what I've been doing is I've been like removing the food after I've given him a warning, remove the food, and then I'll keep him in the high chair for 2 minutes without the food and then take him out. And then if he says to me, now I wanna clean it, I'm kind of at a crossroads of do I let him clean it? Do I let him eat it off the floor? Because that's kind of what he's doing also. So he's also continuing his meal.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And then that last example that I can think of is diaper changes. He's at the point where it's not fun for him to get his diaper changed. It's not fun for me to change his diaper because he's kicking around and like physically hurting. Um, and so it's another point where he's in an environment where I can't necessarily remove him from the situation in the moment. But I don't know if giving him a consequence or telling him that something will happen after that is too far removed from the situation. Mm-hmm. So like he'll be getting his diaper changed and then he'll say, no kicking, no kicking. And then he'll start to kick me in the middle while I'm changing his diaper. So I have to end up, you know, like physically blocking his moves, you know, by holding his legs down or whatever while I'm changing the diaper so I can complete it. But then I feel like by the time the diaper change is over, What do I do after that? Like, sure. And that's, that's kind of like the common thread between all of them, I think, is really just the, he knows the rule and he's just not following through even though he can completely tell me verbally what to do, what I expect from him, and then he'll just go and do the complete opposite.

I wanna acknowledge first and foremost that that could sound exhausting for a mom who is 3 months postpartum and going back to work and has a ton on her plate. And I hear so much that you love your kids. Kids and that you want them to have a good relationship and that your son absolutely adores his little sibling. So I wanna tell you congratulations and thank you. This is not an easy time in your life either. And so to be coming out and having this conversation speaks very, very loudly. Speaks measures to how much you actually love your children.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Thank you. Those were 3 really descriptive examples and very helpful. I hear a lot of awareness on your part, a lot of really good teaching and solid guidance on your part where you're repeating the rule. He knows the rule. He's aware that there's an expectation and your brain is going into what is the proper consequence. I loved hearing you say, you know, is this consequence too far removed from what he's doing? Like, is he gonna understand that connection? And you're just thinking so deeply about this that I hear how intentional you are and I I'm very grateful to be having this conversation with you. So I just wanna start off by saying that I don't hear anything about a rebellious toddler in any of your stories. I hear an extremely normal toddler who's actually discovering that he has control over his body and his choices, and that's completely exhausting. And this is why I tell all of my clients that this is why parenting a toddler is so exhausting. Because it actually can feel intentional, like they're purposely pushing buttons and all the while they're actually not. They can throw something and look at you dead in the eye and literally have no clue why it's happening. And also know, especially in the food example, right? What they should do after, right? I wanna clean this up. Let's clean this up. And it's like this. Sad little human that doesn't even know what they're doing to even know, you know, how to move forward. But he's really good at reciting what you tell him and what he should do. But there's some disconnect between what he's actually doing and what he should do. And so the missing piece here is not making him understand, it's helping him practice a skill that he is lacking, which is very normal for him to be lacking at 2, but the skill is self-control. Impulse control. And that's what we need to slowly build up over time, especially starting at the age of 1, 1.5, 2, depending on how quickly your child is developing. This is not about how do I get my child to listen, or how do I get my child to cooperate, or how do I get my child to not do these things on purpose or in spite of me or intentionally, but instead How can I help him develop the skill of impulse control, of self-control? Because right now there's a disconnect. And so knowing the rule does not automatically mean that you can follow the rule, right?

Mm-hmm.

This is where our parenting shifts from teaching a rule to actually coaching our kids every single day, repeatedly.

It makes a lot of sense in my mind. Of course, I know that he's not purposely trying to do it. And so it's good to hear from you that yeah, he's, he's not. I think part of me also wanting to unpack and figure out the common thread is also so that I feel better about how I'm dealing with the situation because I don't want to get upset at him. I feel guilty every time I raise my voice too loudly at him or and, you know, hold him down during diaper changes, I don't feel good at the end of the day. And I want us to be able to find that, you know, I guess mechanical approach, I guess, to the, the coaching him where I'm not getting frustrated or upset or feeling like I need to act impulsively necessarily when those things are happening.

I, I love that you're aware of what your body and your nervous system are doing. It's really hard to keep your cool in these moments when it's happening what feels like everywhere, right? Like the diaper changes, the eating, the playing. This is all babies and kids do. So when is he not doing this?

Right?

It almost feels like all the time. And then you have to go to bed at night and look at those cute little pictures of them on your phone and want to cry, right? Because you're just like, why did I yell? Why did I get angry? Why was I short? Yeah.

Okay.

So let's jump into some tools that I have for you. I appreciate the connection that you made there because sometimes parents feel like I need to learn how to calm my nervous system first and then I'll be able to parent, you know, in a good way or in a positive or calm way. But I actually tend to lean a little bit in the opposite direction, whereas when we have tools that help us stay calm and help us lead, then our nervous system knows what it feels like to be calm in really hard moments, right? And so I think it's interesting that you also have a similar point of view of like, if I had tools that are actually working, then I won't have to lose it or get to that point of frustration. So let's get into the tools. The first tool that I wanna offer you is less talking and more follow through. The signal that makes me offer this point is that he is almost repeating the rules as much as you are. Like, he's like, No throwing, no throwing. I have to clean this. No throwing the food or no kicking. Not supposed to kick, right? Which tells me that he's hearing these words an awful lot and kids are so intuitive. He might be tying these words to, I know when mommy says these words, she's calm, but then I also know that when I fail to make sense of these words, she gets frustrated. And so I'm gonna repeat them because that's when mommy's happy. And I know that's a stretch, but I want you to really think about what our words are doing and if they're having an impact.

Mm-hmm.

This is a question you have to ask yourself. Am I saying it so much that it's almost losing its meaning? And if that's the case, then we need to do more follow-through. So what I mean by that is no throwing. What did mommy say? Can you tell me the rule? We accidentally start delaying the consequence, and the consequence is the action that we have to take immediately because kids don't learn through lectures and words, especially under the age of 5, especially at the age of 2, right? The rule is the rule. We need to show what happens when the rule is not followed. That's more important than the rule itself. Okay. And so what I want you to do is focus on pouring your energy into not the rule and not the words and not the lecture and not having him repeat it a million times during the moment, right? Maybe once, maybe twice. Let me bring it to life for you. So in the moment of the food, food stays on the tray. You say the rule one time. We don't need to say it again. We said it. Food stays on the tray. Maybe he repeats it back cuz he sounds so sweet. Food stays on the tray.

Okay.

He throws the food looking at you dead in the eye. Mom, I heard you mention that you did this. But this was a great strategy. Looks like lunch is all finished. Mom takes the bowl and moves it off. No lecture, no asking why. Now, him then asking to clean it up is not connected in a 2-year-old's mind to him throwing the food. So what's happened is I like to keep action and consequence A to B. For kids at the age of 2.

Okay.

Food stays on the tray, food gets thrown, food gets taken away. Lunch is done. Literally, you can move it 2 feet away where he can't reach it. We can still see it. No lecture. No, can I clean it up now? Sure. Yeah, you should clean up your mess because when we make messes, that's what we should do. Now we're going A to F. That's way too far. Now he's not connecting it. Why is he gravitating towards wanting to clean up so much? You said he enjoys it. Maybe that's true. My real underlying question, why is he doing that? Maybe it makes mom happy that he's actually cleaning up or doing the right thing and you're calm in that moment. So he's saying, can I clean up? Can I clean up? Because he knows he's going to make it better in some way, shape, and form, which is showing that he's trying to grasp for control in any way that he possibly can. But we want to keep it small for him. A to B. Food gets thrown, food gets taken away. Now the food is 3 feet away from him and he is like, ah, can I clean up? I wanna clean up. Nope. But when you show me calm hands and that you could use your fork like this, I'll put your bowl back in front of you. And maybe while he's doing that, you're grabbing a paper towel and getting the food up off the floor, but he is not allowed to come down.

Okay.

He has to stay where he is so that he can make the connection A to B. I threw the food. Now I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to get that food back. And the reason he keeps repeating this behavior is because we've created a different pattern in his brain. Throw the food, food gets taken away. Now I get to come down and clean up the food because it makes Mom happy and we get to do something fun without her being upset with me. And then she always ends up giving me the food back anyway, so I get to eat. Well, why wouldn't he do it again? Nothing really happened, right? And so we just wanna connect it for him very black and white. And I'm not saying take the food away from him for good. I'm saying once he shows you any sign of improvement, it goes immediately back in front of him and you say, thank you so much. Good job. And let's say he does it again. Yup. You do the same exact thing again, because what he's doing is he's testing it to see if you are consistent. If you mean what you say. So if I throw it again, is it gonna happen again or am I gonna get to clean and eat it off the floor? Let's see. Let me test it. Our little 2-year-olds are like little scientists. They just wanna see. And all we need to do is stay calm and show them, nope, we mean it. Food gets taken away and then he does it. He shows you how to do it nicely. He gets it back.

Okay.

And then maybe if you're sick of it and it happened 3 times, you say, look at him in the eye before you put the food down. Say, this is the last time I'm gonna give you this. And if you can't show me, mommy's gonna feed you if you're still hungry. Because what does he want? He wants control. So if we remove that control and then ultimately remove it by saying, now I have to feed you because you can't eat by yourself without throwing. Oh my goodness. I think you're gonna get it tomorrow, but today mommy's gonna feed you. That's it. That's where we end it. We don't yell. We don't get mad. We give him a try again the next day. The more attention we pour into it, the more he's gonna keep doing it again and again and again. Example with the baby, he's bouncing in the seat or whatever he might be doing with his younger sibling. Quick, to the point, very unemotional, very neutral, gentle hands. That's the rule. Then he bounces the baby like a slingshot. I'm moving you away to keep the baby safe. Take his body and guide him somewhere else. He's not gonna fight or get upset if you are not mad.

Mm-hmm.

So don't get mad, right? Say, I'm moving you away to keep the baby safe. Maybe you have a little chair. I don't mean a timeout chair. I mean just like a little space for him to go. Moving you away regardless. Just a quick A to B consequence. Can I see your hands on your lap? Maybe while he's in that place.

Oh, good.

That's such gentle hands that you put in your lap. I think you can go try again. What are you gonna do when you go back to the baby?

Hmm.

Maybe we can show him the teddy bear, or you can sing him the ABCs. What's your choice? Let him pick one. Give him a little bit of control and send him back in there to succeed. Don't send him back in there to fail. Now you've helped him figure out what was wrong and you gave him a chance to try again, telling him what he can do. Another example with the diaper, he starts kicking you. State the rule firmly one time, right in his eyes, very neutral. Hold his legs down and say, I won't let you kick me. Or very simple, don't kick. Very firm. That's not mean. And then what you're doing here is you're focusing on something else. Finish doing the diaper and ask a question. Redirect. Don't pour any more attention into his body kicking and flailing cuz he's doing it cuz he's getting attention. Over and over again. I want you to just say it once, no kicking. Hey, what was the name of that character in the show we watched before? And I want you to prove to him that he can get through a diaper change without any conversation being around him kicking. I want it to be about something totally different.

Okay.

And I think that's gonna go a long way.

First of all, that makes so much sense. I've noticed that, that I'm talking to him. Way too much, not necessarily about the rule, but after the fact, you know, the reason for why you were taken away. Just because we don't hit, and that makes a lot of sense where I just need to simplify it like A to B, like, and then just move on. Um, so thank you for that. And the other question that I have is with the diaper changes, let's say he does continue to kick. Should I just ignore that? Yes. And redirect. But is there necessarily like a consequence that comes with the fact that he continues to kick? Or you think like over time he'll just stop kicking because I don't pay attention to it.

That's it. That's it right there. You nailed it. You say it once, you mean what you say the first time. You say, we don't kick, or stop kicking, or no kicking. And then he keeps kicking and you're just changing his diaper like it's not happening. So you have to be a little bit of like a ninja in these moments. It's gonna die down every time you do this again and again and again. The first time is gonna be the hardest, but just like you said, the less we pour into it, the quicker it's gonna stop. So you stated the rule and you said don't kick. You held his leg down and now you're saying, what was the name of the character in that book? Ooh, what should we do after I finish? What, what do you wanna have for a snack? An apple or you wanna have your yogurt? Or, ooh, maybe we can go outside. I want you to pretend it's not even happening and maybe make him laugh. Show him that this moment we can share connected by doing something positive, right? I don't wanna pay any attention to this stuff. This is not fun. This is not happy. I wanna be happy with you.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And so we wanna show him that there's something better. There's a better way to connect with me and here it is. And you gotta stay really strong and he will stop. He will stop doing this. Okay.

That answered that question. Thank you.

Cool.

The second tool that I wanna offer you, and it sounds like you're doing this really well so far, practice the skill that he needs, like the self-control, the impulse control, right before you actually need it. So we spend a lot of our energy correcting, but like I said before, kids need more opportunities to practice succeeding. Right?

Right.

So we just need to keep letting them try and try again. So you don't wanna wait until he throws the food. You wanna practice before meals. You don't wanna wait until the baby is nearby. You wanna practice gentle hands in other ways. You don't wanna wait until diaper time. You wanna play a game called Statue Legs where he has to keep his legs super straight and you put the music on and stop the music and say statue legs, and everybody has to stay straight. And then you kind of sneakily tie this into diaper changes where you can even make it a joke and say, wait, that's your legs. And he remembers the game and he makes his legs go really straight. And all of a sudden you don't even have to correct him again.

Yes.

Because now he has a tool. So I want you to kind of think and get creative of how can I practice these skills, not during mealtime, not when he is with his sibling, and not when I'm changing his diaper. Right. But in other ways. Can you show me how you pet your doll really gentle? Or, hmm, what's a good thing we could do with your toy dog? Oh, we don't wanna hurt him, so maybe we could show him this or this. And then he's getting practice, right? Extra practice, not with his sibling or in other ways. So the idea here is that they're learning through repetition when they're calm and not when the moment needs it, when it's urgent.

I really like that because I do try and encourage him in other ways, but I haven't been like looking at the negative things and trying to get ahead of them before that in the same way that I'm, you know, randomly encouraging him throughout the day. I should really be channeling that into giving him encouragement prior to those situations.

I like that you're using the word encouragement cuz that just sets That's the positive tone. It's like you're almost proving to him that he can do it before he even has to do it. You're just like, oh, I know you got those skills, right? He sounds like a super intelligent 2-year-old. Yeah. He knows his rules. He knows what he's doing. He has a big heart. He cares to make it better. He's gonna be so proud of himself for doing good and getting good attention outside of the moments that he's struggling in. The third tool is try your best to make the environment do some of the work. So the idea is that your job is to make the right choice easier for him. And this still goes along that same theme for setting him up for success. Don't expect him to sit next to a baby for 20 minutes. Separate their play spaces. Make a line on the ground with a blanket that you rolled up and give them their spaces. Keep the interactions between them short so that It's like 2 or 3 minutes of when this song is over, we're gonna go back to our spots so that he can experience these moments without being corrected at all. We wanna try and like manipulate the environment a little bit cuz they're so little, both of them, that we wanna make them experience positive moments together. Same with the food. Don't give him a massive plate of food. We know he has a tendency to throw, so maybe we start by giving him 5 pieces of something cut up off of a big plate into a smaller plate for him at a time. So that when the food does start flying, it's not stressful for you either. You're like, whatever, it was 3 pieces. I have the rest of the food here. The whole dinner's not on the floor. And then the other, you know, tying it into the diaper moment, you could even give him a job to do well, right? Hey, I need you to hold the wipes for me, or can you hang onto this clean diaper? Or could you hang onto the cap of this bottle and move fast, get through it really fast so that you could be like, yes, we did it. Awesome. Thank you. Let's go. Let's go sing that song. Let's go play that game. So the idea here is that high structure isn't just focusing on the consequence, but it's also kind of manipulating the environment and setting the environment up for him to actually do well.

I really like that, that food, the food situation also, because that's such an easy fix for me to do that will just alleviate so much of the stress of now I have to clean up the entire dinner and now what do I do with him eating? So I love that. So when I go back to work, the babysitter will be taking care of both of the kids. How can I explain to her these things that I'm implementing? I want her to be able to have a good relationship with my kids.

I think what, what you're getting at here is that you wanna make sure she's on the same page in this high structure, high nurture approach.

Yes.

So that your son is getting the firmness and the kindness that he needs to do well, because you're worried that if somebody doesn't lead him properly, he could very easily fail and be seen as a bad kid or a kid that doesn't listen or a kid that's difficult.

Yeah. Like for, for example, like the bouncer situation, if my babysitter's there and I'm there, so I hear what happens, but like, you know, immediately she is like, no, no, no. Like. Be careful, be careful, like, and all the things that I don't necessarily want to do to him are then happening. And of course he's falling right into the trap of, okay, well then I'm gonna bounce him really high. So I guess if I could just have some tools or simple ways of just telling her that this is the way that I'd like it to be done. Yep.

I think that's a great question. So here's how I would approach that. Ask her to come a little early one day, or on her first day if she's coming the day before to be with you, or if you can have a phone call or a conversation, I want you to just start your conversations with, I just wanna share some things that I've been noticing. And this is not anything to do with her. That's the key, right? Mm-hmm. Because we don't wanna make somebody feel like you're watching them and you're like, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong. So what you wanna say is, You know, I've been noticing he keeps going up to the bouncer and I get so nervous with the baby, but whenever I say be careful, he just doesn't seem to get it. And you could even say, I've been meeting with a parent coach and she gave me this wonderful advice. Um, no, she gave me this really good technique where he really doesn't respond well to words, but he responds really well to action. So like when he's bouncing the baby, it really helps to just say, You know, don't hurt the baby and move him. He needs to take to the action and just kind of highlight that with her and be like, yeah, I've also been noticing it in other ways. You could either tell her all of them at once, but you can also leave it open-ended and say, if I think of anything else, I'm definitely gonna let you know cuz I really see him doing well with this technique and I just wanna keep him on that track.

My last question specifically with the bouncer and the baby. It's a lot harder to deal with your emotions when you're trying to protect one kid from the other. Yep. So like, you know, mentally and emotionally, like I can go into the situation being like, okay, I'm gonna deal with it one way. And then when it ends up happening, my immediate reaction is to protect my baby. So if I could just have like a tool for that, you know, going into it of just calming myself to be able to deal with that situation without taking the emotion and putting it towards that situation.

Yeah. I think the idea here is that they're both your babies.

Yes.

When you, when you look back, right? When you look back on these days, let's say 7, 10 years from now, you'll be like, oh my gosh, I had two little babies. Right? Mm-hmm. Sometimes we, look at our oldest and we just expect so much of them. And I think this is one of the hardest things of being an oldest sibling. It's like all, all of a sudden you were a baby until your younger sibling came and now we're like, you should know this by now.

Yeah. I'm an oldest, so I get it. Yeah.

And I, and I'm the youngest, so I try to understand as much as I can. It's funny, my oldest daughter says to me, you know, mom, you'll never get it because you are the baby of your family. So I'm gonna tell you what it's like to be an oldest child. So my daughter teaches me this. But seriously, like all of a sudden we put this super high expectation on our oldest and we say, I'm gonna protect my little one. And it's such a normal instinct for parents to have. This, this is not a you thing. This is everybody, right? I wanna protect the baby, but really we need to focus on protecting their relationship more than picking one of them, right? It's so important to be like, no, uh, baby, I want you to see how great your older sibling is. And older sibling, I want you to love your baby, so I'm gonna help you guys. Get this, I'm gonna help you do well. And I think that goes a long way because you're not just protecting the little one here and now, you're protecting what they have between them forever for the rest of their lives. As your little one gets older and older and older, we never want them to see you noticeably angry or frustrated at their older sibling because then they start to form an opinion about them, right? Right. Like, oh, my older sibling's so annoying, right? That's where that spoiled youngest child idea comes in, right? And that's parents who create that. Whereas, you know, we don't wanna create that animosity. We wanna say, no, I love you all just the same. And I, you all have such great things here. I'm never gonna show anger towards your older sibling cuz you're all learning and you're all growing at different rates and I have to meet you all where you are and get you closer and closer and closer to each other. Yes. Yeah.

At the end of the day, I wanna make sure that All of them are safe. All of them are happy. Mm-hmm. And yeah, uh, that reframing is helpful. I just wanted to say thank you. This was very helpful. It opened my eyes to a lot of things that were happening that I just saw beyond the frustration and was really able to just simplify it. And sometimes that's kind of what we all need.

As we wrap up, remember this. Knowing the rule and being able to follow it are two different things. Your toddler is not testing you out of spite. He's a tiny little scientist still building self-control, and that skill grows through calm, consistent practice and repetition. Not more words. Talk less, follow through faster, and set him up to succeed before he fails.

Thank you for joining me in the Parent Coaching Chair. Keep leading your home with high structure and high nurture. And I'll meet you back here next week. Your ratings and reviews help this podcast reach more parents who need this message. If this episode helped you, please leave a rating or review. It really helps. If you're looking for more support, you'll find classes and practical guides over at my website, www.transformingparenthood.com. I also, I want you to know you don't have to wait for a podcast episode or a coaching spot to get help. I launched Ask Julie just 2 weeks ago, and parents have already sent thousands of questions, have received immediate answers, and have seen significant change in their homes. This is more questions than I could ever answer by hand in a whole year. This is private 24/7 parent coaching that talks back to you in real time, in my voice, built entirely on my research, my courses, and the Transforming Parenthood philosophy of high structure, high nurture parenting. Ask Julie is so much me that when my own sister or husband can't get ahold of me, they literally just ask Julie instead. And honestly, she gave them better advice than I would have mid-launder anyway. In all seriousness, it's the same guidance that I would give you in a session right in your pocket. The next time it's late, Your kid just lost it. You need a clear next step and you can't wait for office hours. You are not alone, and you also shouldn't be Googling. Just ask Julie.