A Review of ProActive Parenting's Gentle No's for Toddlers

Being a first-time mom with no background experience in child discipline, I’m the perfect example of what you shouldn’t be doing to your kid. Whenever Holly shows signs of bad behavior in the house (spanking or biting), I’d scold her, call out her name, and look at her in the eye. I’d try to talk to her like how a mom would talk to a 7-year old, but if she didn’t stop her bad behavior, I’d punish her by slapping her hand and raising my voice.

What frustrates me is that this method of discipline wasn’t working at all. I couldn’t get her to stop slapping her nanny on the face, biting her aunt’s shoulder, or pulling my hair. She is a feisty 1-year old who didn’t seem to want to listen to anyone.

I wanted to do something about this, but without any knowledge or idea on how to teach my daughter the proper way, I was left sitting on my chair with a question mark on top of my head. But after I received a seminar from Proactive Parenting called Gentle No’s for Toddlers, I was ready to give it a try again.

Gentle No’s for Toddlers is an audio seminar (about 36 minutes long) that talks about teaching toddlers age 1-3 what to do and what not to do, without using traditional punishment. It focuses on responding whenever a child does something bad, and not reacting by yelling or angrily punishing them.

Created by Sharon Silver of Proactive Parenting, the seminar covers two major aspects of teaching toddlers what’s right or wrong: The reasons why traditional “time-out” doesn’t work on toddlers of this age and how parents can discipline them the right and “proactive” way. I’m not going to share too much detail, but here were the points in the seminar that I really liked:

1. Toddlers won’t listen to you if you keep shouting and spanking them. Even I wouldn’t listen to my mom if she kept yelling and pointing fingers at me to teach me something. The best way for your toddler to learn is to teach them, not scare them through punishment and anger.

2. Repetition is the key to making them remember. Your toddler’s not going to be able to remember what you taught him overnight. You have to be consistent with what you’re teaching for them to fully remember what mommy or daddy said. This is one of my favorite points in the seminar as it explains why Holly isn’t listening to me.

3. The tone and volume of your voice can do wonders when teaching toddlers what’s right and wrong. The technique taught in the seminar focuses on using your voice to get your toddler to respond to you. When your toddler hears your voice, they will respond. I tried it several times on Holly and she really does respond to me.

As of this writing, Holly’s still trying to understand why Mommy says no whenever she bangs her laptop or why she can’t pull Mommy’s hair. She still has her bad behavior, but I’m not giving up. I can see that the techniques of Gentle No’s for Toddlers is working, and with firm consistency and encouragement from me, she’ll be able to understand fully and finally stop her bad habits.

Quality-wise, the audio's very clear, the seminar is easy to digest and listen to, and the content itself is very helpful to parents who are having trouble teaching their 1-3 year old toddlers to behave. Sharon’s an excellent parent coach, so you’re getting advice from someone who has been there and done that.

To end this review, I recommend it to first-time parents like me who are still grasping the same punishment concept that has been around for a very long time, but are scratching their heads wondering why their toddler is still not listening to them. You can visit the Proactive Parenting seminars page here.

Photo credits to ProActive Parenting and NannyLookup

Stef Gonzaga is a 20-year old mom, a freelance writer, an online shopper, and a tech maniac. Read about her life at The Steffi G. Blog, learn everything you need to know about freelancing at The Freelance Pinoy, or connect with her via Twitter @alexis0fdreams.