Andrea Stokes
July 10, 2024
When we had our daughter, my husband and I knew we wanted to raise her to be an obedient, well-behaved child. But as she grew, and two little brothers were added to the family, we realized how ill-equipped we were and how daunting this goal seemed. Thankfully, a friend had told us about Parenting Made Practical and we were brought under the wise and extremely helpful teaching of Joey and Carla Link in their Mom’s Notes session on “Training Toddlers”.
The first thing they taught us was how to have proper expectations of our toddler-aged children. Hearing “no,” experiencing tantrums, and being embarrassed in public are just part of the territory. But how we handle these normal occurrences matters.
Being consistent and directive with a toddler is the next principle we learned. We found out this is not the time in life to try to be your child’s best friend, or simply ask them to do things you want them to do. We learned how important it is to require the right action of your child, knowing their belief in why a certain action is important will follow as they get older.
They talked about being directive with your little one. This means you tell your child what to do rather than asking them if they want to do it. If there is no choice, there is no choice, so don’t make it one by asking if they want to do it, because if you ask them, they can tell you “no!”
Part of being directive is requiring First-Time Obedience. This one principle has shaped the level of obedience in our kids to this day. Teaching a child to come right away, all the way, with a happy heart when we call their name is the standard we learned to use.
And we saw that once First-Time Obedience was established, it was much easier to discern which behaviors and attitudes needed correcting from there. The Links always encourage us as parents to focus on one thing at a time. This can be so hard, but also gave us so much freedom to really choose one area at a time, instead of trying to work on everything we saw “wrong” at once. If one of our children started lying, that is the one thing we would work on and we would let other things go with reminders from us to get them done but few consequences.
And inevitably, when discipline was needed, Joey and Carla provided explanations and thoughts on how to use discipline tools, such as logical consequences, natural consequences, and isolation. Always using examples and offering helpful solutions, we found their ideas wise and practical.
While we can now look back on the toddler years, we have found these principles have shaped our whole parenting method and have given us a solid foundation for the years since then. Raising children who are characterized by obedience is not easy, and Joey and Carla provide real help for the journey!
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
Nate and Andrea have three children, ages 10, 7, and 4. They live in Colorado and enjoy being outdoors, playing with neighbors, and learning new things!
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