I need to figure out a way to get my one year old to differentiate between “put it away” and “throw it away”
I need to figure out a way to get my one year old to differentiate between “put it away” and “throw it away”
This message brought to you by the milk cup and makeup bag I’ve had to fish out of the garbage.
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Dude/dudette. 1 year olds are just poop robots. Wait a few more months.
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I know, I mostly posted this as humor. She does love helping out by putting things away, closing doors, putting clothes in the dryer or in the clothes basket. I told her I was going to put her milk away and she grabbed it from me and tried to put it in the trash
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We use "tidy up" or "clean up" and "put it in the bin".
At that age and with those two phrases they're just hearing the "away" part and thinking "I know what away means" :)
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At one year old, your child should constantly be supervised with no access to the bin (toddlers tend to put whatever they find in their mouth). You can give your child positive and negative feedback for their actions with manually correcting when needed.
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She is supervised, both of us were in the kitchen with her. I caught the item before they were actually in the trash and helped redirect her to the correct location. She’s just excited she learned how to open the trash can and likes helping.
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We went through this. We changed to “put it away/back” and “put it in the trash can”
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Are they closer to one or two?
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She’s sixteen months. I know it’s not something she should have grasped yet, I was mostly posting this as humor because she wants to be helpful around the house.
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I avoid confusing phrases once I've learned that the phrases confuse the children. So for this child, I would have "put" and I would have "trash". And as I pointed to something or handed them something I would either say "put" or "trash". Clearly, the word "away" is presenting a challenge to them that is making this more difficult than it needs to be at this time in their life. Later on we can work on multi word phrases, maybe closer to 1 1/2 or two. Right now, one word.
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i have a 2 year old and i can trust them with that difference - maybe it's just too young and they're still learning the distinction?
Alternatively, you could try making a game out of putting the milk cup around the room and putting it on the side. I know my child was super curious about the bin too.
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If your 1 year old has access to the garbage you are doing something wrong. Even if they’re “supervised”, they are quick. Tons of kids end up in the ER because they cut themselves or swallow something from the trash even while their parents are right there. Your trash should be covered and ideally inaccessible to your child.
That being said, we’ve had luck with our 1 year old using dog training techniques. I’ve been applying behavior shaping, basically making a big deal out of anything remotely close to being on the way to the desired behavior. You never want to punish a one year old but positive reinforcement works for some babies. I just say “good baby!” and clap and she gets excited. We’ve made a lot of progress in keeping her from throwing her milk cup from the high chair and being wild while getting dressed.
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have you considered putting away the child 🤔