Redirection

Lots of toddlers behave in a way which we deem 'inappropriate' or 'rude' without intending to upset anybody. They often experiment with these types of behaviours to test our reactions and how much attention that can gather from that behaviour. This means just saying 'no' is unlikely to sink in in the way we would like it to. Toddlers have a developmental need to explore their senses, autonomy and initiative. Whilst it is part of our job to help them to explore this need, this should not be confused for letting your child rule the roost and it is important to let them explore within limits for safety.

Redirection is a fairly self-explanatory concept from the offset; your aim is to redirect the child from an undesirable behaviour to a desirable one. An example of this would be, if your child has a habit of tipping all of their toys onto the floor at once, instead of saying ‘no, don’t do that’, you could say, ‘if you want some help finding a toy, ask me and I’ll help you’. Another example would be if your child is prone to soaking the whole bathroom by splashing in the bath tub, instead of saying, ‘no splashing’ you could model the desirable behaviour, such as making their bath toys swim or pouring water between different cups from various heights.

The need for redirection can also appear when we have asked a child to wait for something, whether this be for dinner to be ready or for their turn with a toy that another child is playing with. Children need to experience delayed gratification to understand that although they may not get what they want straight away, they are no less happy with the result after a short wait. To redirect from an incoming waiting time reaction, we can offer something to do in the meantime. For example, if your child is impatient for their dinner, ask if they would like to help by setting out their own cutlery or calling their siblings to the table etc. This gives them a sense of control over the dinner experience as well as a distraction from the waiting time. This also works for waiting their turn for a toy or game, if you can offer an alternative that your child can do whilst they wait, especially if this involves yourself ("shall we see how many goals we can score whilst we wait, I bet you can do 10!"), they will likely have a much easier time waiting for their turn, or even forget they ever wanted to have a go in the first place!

Of course, often these are easier said than done, especially when it’s the end of a busy day and we just finished tidying the playroom or we just want to get bath time out the way without having to get the mop out. This can be a slow process but an effective one nonetheless, as long as you try and use the modelling, redirection response more often than not, you should start to see a change in these behaviours very soon.