The toddler stage can be tricky! One minute they can be your sweet little angel, the next minute they can be your little sour patch.

Either way, as the caregiver, we are responsible for making sure that our children build an understanding around what is and isnt acceptable behavior.

The best place to begin is within! When children begin to understand more about themselves internally, they learn to make good choices because they enjoy the benefits of making choices that are good.

Our approach to tantrums must alter if we want our children to listen and behave.

This is because children don’t learn anything from spankings or being yelled at when they don’t listen!

Children think and learn through play. Play helps them to uncover more about their emotions, expand their concepts of thought and uncover how the world around them functions. As caregivers, we have to teach the why and the how behind inappropriate behavior in a way that they will understand and learn from.

By choosing to react through spankings, we miss out on the valuable opportunity to teach our children how to behave instead of threatening them how to want to behave.