How to Calmly Enforce Limits With a Toddler

Dear Kid Whisperer,

My 19-month-old has just begun to walk in the last couple of months, and this is causing a major problem. When I ask him to stay near me, he walks away, and no matter what I say, he keeps walking. I don’t want to physically grab him, but now, especially in public this can be dangerous. What do I do? I feel like I’m missing something obvious.

-Deborah, Dayton, Ohio

Deborah,

You are missing something that would be obvious if human Americans still listened to their elders and used the wisdom accrued through all of human history instead of eschewing the accumulated knowledge of all of human history and instead listening to “parenting experts” who may have never met a human juvenile. As such, it’s very easy for parents to not do things that should seem obvious.

You don’t want to grab your toddler when he walks away from you? Why on earth not? You are a parent. You were literally made to pick up and hold your child.

So do it.

To do this in an optimal way that will support future efforts to create a calm, loving environment where you can teach your kid positive behaviors, I’m going to suggest that you use the following method to set a limit once and then take calm action.

First, what you are doing now is systematically and habitually training Kid that when you set a limit, it’s not really a limit. What you are doing right now is setting a limit with words and then doing nothing when the limit is ignored. This teaches Kid that it wasn’t really a limit at all, and when you say things, you don’t mean them.

Instead, I will show you how I would set the limit once, then take a simple action to enforce the limit. In addition, I will use a Calm Signal to automatically express calm to myself and Kid. Doing so is very important, since Kid will tend to mirror my calm demeanor or my lack of a calm demeanor, whichever I put forward.

Here’s how I would do it with your kid– let’s say at the playground:

Kid Whisperer: You can run around, as long as it is in the playground area with these borders. The playground has this brown stuff called mulch. Feel free to walk or run anywhere on the ground that looks like this (picking up the mulch and showing it to Kid).

Kid immediately attempts to sprint into the woods, presumably to begin a new life off the grid.

Kid Whisperer (smiling, calmly catching up with Kid the second he leaves the playground and gently picking him up under his arms) Ohhh, dear.

Kid Whisperer calmly carries Kid back to the center of the playground and puts him down. Kid Whisperer plays with Kid or watches him play on his own. Kid Whisperer repeats the pick-up procedure whenever Kid goes outside the border that was described one time. If Kid keeps making a break for it so long that Kid Whisperer gets too tired to continue, the pick-up procedure is amended by taking Kid to the car and strapping Kid in without stopping smiling or saying the Calm Signal.

Kid Whisperer: Ohhh dear. I’m too tired from picking you up. Time to move on.

Whether or not Kid understood the limit when first given doesn’t matter, because he will learn the limit through that limit being reinforced with calm, physical action. This will also set a wonderful precedent for the rest of Kid’s juvenile life: Kid learns that he must live within the rules established by the parent, that the parent is calm and loving, and that attempting to go outside of the limits established by the calm, loving parent doesn’t work.