Discipline

There are days when I feel fairly confident in my mothering abilities.  Likewise there are many more days when I feel completely clueless on how to raise my son.  Austin is one day shy of 17 months old.  He is learning how to display his independence by following simple directions and completely ignoring others.  He has learned to shake his head "NO" and grunt in such a way to "say" - no.  After all my years of working with children through the dance studio and school system, I have formed the opinion that a child telling their parent NO is one of the most disrespectful actions the child can do.

So in the last few days I have found myself to be this parent that is being told NO by their own toddler.  But how do I fix this.  How do I discipline Austin in a way he will understand to stop this behavior.  Currently I am attempting the route of when he tells me NO I simple tell him again what we are going to do and then forcefully make him obey.  For example, I say, Austin let's go change your diaper.  Response, shaking head "no" and grunts.  I tell him, "Yes, mommy said we need to change your diaper" and pick him up (kicking and screaming) and go change his diaper.

Seconds after the incident has passed Austin seems to have forgotten the entire ordeal.  I however am left pondering this "no" problem and how to correct it.  Since I am completely lost in the area of how to discipline my child, I have looked for recommendations from fellow parents on this journey of raising children.  I have received several book recommendations, which will take me some time to get through, but I will post my findings here for others information.  This morning I stumbled upon this article on parenting from a friend on Facebook - Parenting 001.  I found the article very encouraging and enjoyed the comparison of parenting today versus 20 years ago.

If any readers have advice on how to teach my son to respect me by not telling me "no", I am all ears.