What Fresh Hell: Laughing In The Face Of Motherhood

This week Lindsay asks: How do you discipline a 1-year-old? Specifically, with pulling my hair and dropping his food on the ground. I say “no" in a firm way and he laughs at me. Any advice you could provide would be much appreciated. Thanks for all you do- love your podcast! You can't discipline a 1-year-old. They don't get it. But you can redirect, and in this episode Amy explains how that can work. Toddlers drop food on the floor because they’re fascinated by cause and effect, and in repeating the few things they can control. It's a behavior kids will bore of sooner than you can correct it. But if the parental reaction is swift and predictable, it can actually encourage more food-throwing. The challenge is to make throwing food on the floor more boring than NOT doing it. Pulling hair is another brief but intense stage of toddler behavior, and the quickest way to discourage that might be by adding an incompatible behavior– something that can't happen at the same time as the hair-pulling. If you hand a toddle