Toddler Discipline: What Works and What Doesn’t

All of us have likely experienced this exact scenario: your toddler refuses to eat their vegetables or strongly pushes back during mealtime. It may seem like they’re doing it on purpose. The truth is, they aren’t. They can’t help it! Knowing how to discipline a toddler is the key to unlocking real teaching moments, but knowing where to start may seem intimidating.

Worry not! Our article will help you better understand your child’s behavior and equip you with the steps toward creating a system that works.

Understanding Toddler Behavior

A toddler’s brain is a huge construction site that focuses on the emotion center (amygdala) and the control center (prefrontal cortex) [*]. The amygdala detects threats and drives impulses, while the prefrontal cortex is responsible for logic and reasoning. However, because toddlers have big emotions in a small brain, experiencing things like fear, disappointment, and sadness can feel overwhelming.

Toddlers don’t yet have the words to express themselves, so they may repeat unwanted behaviors—but this isn’t defiance. Like language, working memory isn’t your toddler’s strong suit. Rules don’t seem set in stone. They don’t perceive their environment as stable. Thus, they’re always pushing and testing boundaries to experience how the world works.

As children experience the world firsthand, they learn the consequences of certain actions. Some physical and cognitive stressors will trigger a child and affect their behavior. For example, children may lash out if they are hungry, sleepy, or tired. They might also become triggered when they feel too overwhelmed in their environment, want to do something without their parents’ help, or can’t express themselves with words.

Why Your Discipline Approach May Not Be Working

When your toddler isn’t responding to your disciplinary methods, it doesn’t make them a bad child (nor does it make you a bad parent). More often than not, it’s because they lack fully developed impulse control [*].

Being aware of a rule and automatically following it are two totally separate things in a child’s mind. Sometimes, they simply can’t dull the excitement of touching something they aren’t supposed to or throwing a toy across the room because they’re frustrated.

Other times, your disciplinary approach is just a mismatch. For example, if you’re asking a toddler to explain why they touched the stove when you explicitly told them not to, they may not have an answer. They might not even know why they did it! It was just an impulse.

While you’ll want to adjust your disciplinary approach according to your child’s age and developmental level, breaking consistency too often can hurt their sense of safety. Toddlers need predictability, so if your boundaries on Friday are not what they were on Monday, your child is going to keep testing these boundaries without improving their behavior.

Another roadblock to successful discipline is when your child is experiencing biological override. No amount of healthy discipline is going to work when your child is hungry, tired, or sleepy! Asking your child to “compose themselves” when they’re experiencing sensory overload is kind of like trying to do math in your head while escaping a house fire—it’s just too much.

The same goes for having unrealistic expectations of how your child should behave at any given time. Expecting your toddler to sit still, share their toys, and wait their turn is a bigger ask than you think it is, and it’ll only frustrate them.

The final culprit for a broken disciplinary system is when you unknowingly reinforce unwanted behaviors with inconsistent reactions. Let’s say your child uses a swear word for the first time. You might be so off-guard you laugh, then remember they shouldn’t be using those words, so you discipline them. Your toddler will immediately register the positive response and repeat the behavior to get the same results, which may not happen.

How to Discipline a Toddler

Disciplining a toddler is tricky, and finding what works may require some trial and error. Here are a few helpful tips for finding the best ways to discipline your toddler.

Set simple, consistent boundaries

When a toddler does something naughty, a lecture is just going to come across to them as noise. After all, they don’t yet have the words to comprehend what you might be saying.

When they break a boundary, focus on keeping things clear and simple. Acknowledge what your child wants, whether it be a toy, to visit a place, or to have a specific snack. Then, set your boundary. Clearly. If they’re hitting, tell them, “I won’t let you hit me. That hurts.”

Then, offer a safe alternative. Give them a cushion to hit instead, or encourage them to release pent-up energy by yelling into a pillow. Finally, follow through with calm physical enforcement. Hold their hands firmly if they try to hit again.

Redirect instead of punishing

A toddler’s brain works like cable television. When they repeat unwanted behaviors, redirecting them doesn’t stop their emotional impulses—it just changes the channel. Punishing your child for “being bad” only stresses them out more and may even make them want to lash out.

So, the answer is redirection, and there are three types:

1. Physical redirection: Sometimes, toddlers can’t help physical reactions. They may need to hit or throw things as a way to expel intense energy inside. You can give them safe objects (like pillows or stuffed toys) to give this energy somewhere to go.
2. Verbal redirection: Telling your child what to do helps distract them from the forbidden object and onto something equally engaging. If they’re in the tub splashing around dangerously, for example, you might tell your child, “How about we play with our water toys instead? These are so much fun!”
3. Environmental redirection: Sometimes, a change of scenery will do the trick for a frustrated child. If they’re melting down, taking them to a quiet space or stepping outside for some fresh air can reset the nervous system.

Use related consequences

Consider this scenario: you ask your toddler to keep away from the plates as you’re rinsing them to prevent them from breaking. They ignore your request, pick up a plate, then accidentally drop it onto the floor. It shatters. As a consequence, you take away their favorite stuffed animal.

The punishment, at face value, is totally random and has nothing to do with the behavior you want to change. Taking a toy away from a child is meaningless. Dr. Carothers advises: “If there’s a rule you want followed… then that is something you have to correct in the moment when you see it.”

You can follow this simple equation for implementing related consequences: state the rule, give your child one warning, then enforce the consequence firmly but calmly.

Let’s go back to the example we used earlier. Tell your child to sit in their seat while you rinse the plates. If they’re being stubborn, give them a warning. If they defy you and break a plate, move your child into a separate room where they have no access to the plates and can remain safe while you clean up the mess.

Give limited choices

Toddlers love testing boundaries, and this includes desperately vying for autonomy. They love trying things out themselves because they aren’t yet familiar with the consequences of certain actions.

Offering your child limited choices still gives them independence while you remain in control over the boundary itself. According to clinical psychologist Dr. Kristin Carothers, children should be making “developmentally appropriate decisions.”

Let’s say your child doesn’t want to put their shoes on for a trip to the park. You wouldn’t threaten them to put their shoes on “or else.” Instead, you can give them a choice. “Black or blue shoes?” Both options get your child to put their shoes on, but they get to choose which pair they want.

Toddler Discipline Approaches to Avoid

Not every type of discipline is helpful. Some methods may do more harm than good. Here are a few disciplinary methods you should avoid.

Yelling or threats

Children love to test our boundaries, so it’s not unexpected to want to yell sometimes. But threatening your child will only add to everyone’s stress. Toddlers regulate according to how you’re regulating. When you explode, your child loses their safe space, and you become “scary.”

Yelling or threatening a child models the wrong behavior. Over time, they might believe it’s okay to yell at or intimidate their peers.

Long explanations

Toddlers have poor working memory and a receptive language lag. Telling them, “Don’t push your sibling, they could get hurt! Imagine if they did that to you. Would you feel good? You would feel hurt, wouldn’t you?” will only come across as noise, and they’ll lose track of what you’re saying.

Not to mention, your toddler’s emotions are probably at an all-time high, and giving long explanations can overwhelm them more.

Inconsistent rules

Toddlers and mixed signals don’t go together. If mom is too tired to stick to the rules one day, then suddenly enforcing them the next day, a toddler won’t understand what kind of behavior mom wants them to repeat.

Irregular rules trigger the intermittent reinforcement schedule, which is the same mechanism that makes slot machines addictive to adult gamblers [*]. If your child’s behavior gets them what they want sometimes, they may be more likely to repeat that behavior in the future.

Overuse of time-outs

Time-outs have been part of many parents’ discipline methods for decades, but are they as effective as we think? When toddlers are on an emotional high from misbehaving, isolation doesn’t solve the problem. Co-regulation does.

When toddlers are isolated, they feel afraid and alone, which can escalate into a tantrum. They might kick, scream, or get up repeatedly. Even worse, overusing time-outs teaches a child that it’s not okay to have big emotions like anger or frustration.

When Toddler Behavior May Need Extra Support

Occasional tantrums, yelling, and boundary-testing are all normal in most toddlers. However, there may come a time when seeking professional help is necessary.

In early toddlerhood, you may see some biting and hitting, though this behavior should start to wane by ages 3 or 4 [*]. Professional help may be necessary if the aggression is unprovoked and happening all the time.

Another sign your toddler may require intervention is extreme emotional dysregulation. While a 5-minute tantrum may seem normal, one that lasts 20 or even more than 30 minutes isn’t [*]. A toddler who can’t co-regulate may hurt themselves or destroy things in their immediate environment.

A child demonstrating all these signs doesn’t make them a bad one, nor are these signs of bad parenting. You may just need extra support. The first step is getting a complete pediatric evaluation of your child to eliminate other possible causes.

If your pediatrician finds that your child is physically healthy, they may recommend child and family therapy or occupational therapy [*]. The latter is most appropriate for children who may experience sensory processing differences and become overwhelmed when they experience certain sights, sounds, and textures.

Discipline is Connection, Not Control

Toddlers are at the peak of discovery. They’re excited about their independence and often want to do things on their own. But many safe decisions still remain in the hands of their parents.

Help your child overcome their anger and frustration with our collection of anger management worksheets.