Is your 2-year-old ready for logical consequences?

If your child throws rocks at the playground, what should you do? One option is to clearly say, “Those rocks can hurt someone. Let’s find something else to throw.” This is known as a logical consequence—an outcome caused by a child’s behavior but determined by an adult. 

At this age, logical consequences are about helping your 2-year-old regulate their emotions and their body. Moving on from the rocks isn’t a punishment—it’s a reset.

How to enforce logical consequences

When your child does something that requires your intervention, try to direct them toward a positive behavior. At this age, you can involve your toddler in choosing an alternative, but related, activity. The ideal redirection gives your toddler something productive and safe to do with the feelings and behaviors they’re showing.

If you’re holding your toddler and they start pulling your hair, for example, you can say: “Ouch! That hurts me. I’m going to put you down. We can hold hands instead. Or, you can ask Papi to hold you.” This way, you offer them safer alternatives—a different person to be close to or a way to stay close without hurting you. 

If your child does something destructive, like dumps the water from their water bottle onto the floor, you’ll need to stop them. Try saying, “The water is making a big mess. I’m going to put that bottle away for now so we can clean up this mess.” Move the bottle and wipe up the water together. Then build on this logical consequence by offering them something to do that’s related to the behavior you stopped: You can offer them a container of toys to dump out and refill, or redirect them to some simple water play with the <b>Super Sustainable Sink With Bio-Based Cups & Plates</b> from The Helper. 

How does your toddler learn from logical consequences?

Your 2-year-old is slowly learning that their actions have consequences. It takes a long time for them to develop the skills to predict the consequences of their actions. When you give and explain appropriate consequences, they’ll start to understand what they cannot do—and get a better idea of what they can do instead ❤️

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