Reposted from my Moonlight Blog: April 12, 2017
Question from FaceBook: How do you handle when toddlers refuse to put things away? Mine just turned two and we are trying to get her to put her toys away when she’s done with them. Sometime she does it really really well, and other times she just refuses. The natural consequence I’ve been using is that she doesn’t get to play with those toys anymore and they go away in the closet and she says bye-bye. But that doesn’t seem to be making too much of an impact. What do you guys suggest for this?
Answer: This expectation would not be developmentally appropriate. They will not begin doing this consistently until much later (in school, this is one of the signs that they are ready for the 3-6 classroom). I model cleanup, invite them to join me, but it is not an expectation. At home we would encourage families to keep the toys out to a minimum (between 9 and 12 activities). Try to not have big buckets of toys, such as giant buckets of blocks. With those toys have 10 or so pieces out only. Taking the toys away would be considered a punishment, which we try to avoid. In this situation, the natural consequence is to have a mess to look at, a toy that gets stepped on and hurts someone, or gets stepped on and broken. As I am modeling clean up, I mention these consequences as the reason I am cleaning up.
The adult keeps the order, the child internalizes it, then they begin to keep the order themselves eventually.
Q: Thanks so much for this clarification. One of the problem is that toys are indeed a big bag of blocks. She loves to dump them all out and then sort of organize them, but then it’s always a struggle to put them away. I will try giving her just 10 pieces. So in that case, does that count as one toy and then she can also have a handful of other choices? Right now we’re doing a lot of puzzles and sets of things like animals that are magnetic. So each toy has a lot of little parts. What should I do in terms of how many of those to have out at a time?
A: The group of ten counts as one one activity. For animals I keep 5 or 6 out as one activity. One puzzle is out. One or two books (and I count that in my nine). If most things have multiple pieces I try to stay closer to the 9 mark than 12.
Q: Thank you so much! It makes total sense, now that you pointed it out, that taking the toy away was not a natural consequence. That feels much better to me to just ask her to clean up and do it for her for now. We are also struggling with the obedience aspect. I know that cooperation not obedience is the goal, and I love that. But at what point does it become not OK for your child to flat out disobey you? Only in issues of safety? What do I say if she says no when I ask her to do something?
A: I actually don’t even think cooperation is a goal. It is nice when it happens, but it also isn’t a developmentally appropriate expectation at this age. Try to reframe your thinking from disobedience, to “acting in ways that are age appropriate”. They cannot really disobey at this age, they are acting in large part on impulse. Even if they “know” a rule, even can repeat it back, they often cannot help themselves from not following the rule to satisfy curiosity or another internal need. As they develop this impulse control they may start “disobeying”, but this typically happens around three or so and is another sign that they are ready to move from a toddler environment to a 3-6 environment. It shows that they are leaving the unconscious absorbent mind period and are entering the conscious absorbent mind period.
In my classroom, I stop a child from doing something that falls into the category of the four Ds.
The Four Ds
Destruction When something could be broken or pieces lost.
Disruption Such that it is truly bothering another, rather than something could potentially bother someone.
Disrespect Being unkind
Danger Being unsafe for oneself or another. I do make a distinction between safety like you might have to go to a hospital or could die , which I always stop, and minor injuries, like you could fall or pinch fingers, etc. I will often allow those types of “risky” behavior.
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