The Art of Redirection
Friday, October 25th, 2013From Friday Mom – Erin:
Rory is in full-blown explorer mode. In addition to teaching us that we have a lot more child proofing to do, his explorations are teaching us quite a bit about infants and boundaries. Namely, that infants are far too young to understand them.
I am a little embarrassed to say that when his father asked me when infants can actually start to understand discipline, I didn’t know the answer. The topic came up after a particularly rigorous wrestling match to get his shoes on before heading to daycare in the morning. I asked if we were “damaging” him by not saying no. Neither one of us knew the answer.
After some time with the “parenting” books and a little help from the internet, I confirmed that we have not broken Rory by failing to set boundaries. Instead, through our typical approach of trial and error, we have already begun to implement the widely-recommended approach of redirection. When Rory starts rolling over on his changing pad, we give him a toy, a burp cloth, a clean diaper, or whatever other distraction is within reach to try to keep him calm and on his back for the few seconds needed to finish the diaper change. When he starts grabbing at a necklace, tie, or other piece of parental clothing, we swiftly remove it from his hands and his line of site and give him a toy or other distraction. When he makes a bee-line for the bathroom or another off-limits part of the house, we step in front of him, close the door, inform him that bathrooms aren’t for babies, and plop him down in his room or on his play mat in an attempt to show him “his” space.
We’re working on limiting “no” to truly dangerous scenarios so that as he does start to understand boundaries more we won’t have desensitized him entirely.
I can’t say we’ve mastered the art of redirection just yet. And I know that he will almost certainly continue to have melt-downs when we put on his coat, try to change his diaper, or attempt to change his clothes for bed. But realizing that the best thing we can do is go with the flow has helped us stop worrying, which feels good, for certain.
