How to discipline toddlers without raising your voice!

5 ways to discipline your child without raising your voice!

When you have kids who are constantly "up-to-no-good”, raising your voice or pointing fingers may become exhausting! Solution? Get creative! Here’s a list of consequences that you can implement without losing your cool!

Before we begin, this is a MUST DO before implementing consequences

According to parenting coach, Leah Koenig, the first thing you need to do is figure out what you want to achieve with your discipline. If you’re angry and are punishing your child out of spite, then you may be doing more harm than good. However, if a parent can put their feelings aside, they can be more creative and come up with a mode of punishment that gets their message across in an effective manner.

Hug it out!

If you catch your kids hitting each other, immediately pull them apart and tell them to go to their respective corners to calm down.

Then, face each other and exchange apologies like so:
I’m sorry for (insert wrong doing committed), I did it because (explain why they got upset), and finally, next time, I will (insert appropriate thing to do).
After the kids have had their say, tell them to hug it out. They may find it awkward at first, but overtime, they start giggling and all is well again.

Get physical – no, not THAT kind of physical!

Remember when you were a kid and your mom would make you squat in the corner while balancing books? Didn’t it hurt like mad? Why not bring that back?

As much as possible, you want to avoid giving your child a smack on the hand or bottom, so this may be the next best thing. If perfectly able to do so, have the child squat for 3-5 minutes. It may seem like a short time for us adults, but for kids, it feels like an eternity!

“Huhuliin ka ng pulis!”

A lot of parents make use of this statement and while it instills fear in your child, it doesn’t really do anything else. Raising kids to be fearful of authority figures isn’t the same as raising your child to be respectful of them, so avoid using this. Instead, engage in role play.

When your child does something wrong, write up a "ticket” that has a list of their "violations” and their respective consequences. When done with their punishment, ask your child to relieve you off your "duty” and to "patrol” the house, making sure to keep an eye out for deviant acts or people.

Let them clean up their own mess

My 5-year-old was going through my clothes drawer when all of the sudden, everything toppled down! I was tempted to put the drawers back into place and to fold up the clothes, but then I had a better idea! Why not make my son do it himself!

By doing so, my child learned how to fold clothes properly but more importantly, he learned how tiring it is to clean up a mess! He eventually completed the task and actually thanked me for it because he felt like such a "big boy”.

No more time out!

Instead of sending your child "to the corner to think about what he did”, why not assign him a task? This may be inclusive of answering math worksheets, practicing his handwriting, piecing a puzzle together and more. Not only does it help calm the child down but it tunnels his focus to accomplishing positive.

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Written by

Raisa Tan

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