At what age should you start disciplining your child?

It's never too young to start a child with discipline. Now's the time for patience. Allow her to sit and wait for you to finish a bottle or something before you come to her. Don't run every time she speaks or cries out. Let her hear your voice and be assured that you will be there for her.

Not allowing her into places she doesn't belong is another way to discipline her. She may be crawling now so putting up a gate helps this. Touching things? Removing her from the problem item to another activity is a good way. My kids tested me terribly at that age and especially when they were starting to walk.

She understands simple things, yes. She knows when she's doing something she shouldn't. She may look at you and smile as she's reaching for something she doesn't need to touch?

A firm no-no or you're being a naughty girl helps. Explaining to her that something will hurt her also, in simple terms.

It's important to start teaching your child what is acceptable and what is not as soon as possible. Obviously there will be some things that she won't understand, but 'discipline' at that age is just saying 'No!', 'Hot!', 'Dangerous!', 'Yucky!', etc. and then redirecting her attention elsewhere.

But what do you mean by signs of her being demanding and impatient? Some of that could just be her personality, or it could be a phase she's going through, or a bit of separation anxiety which causes her to act out. With an 8 month old there is just no telling. My son was very impatient at that age, but I think his was just being bored and wanting to explore but not having any means of doing so or the capability.

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You are confusing "discipline" from punishment.

Discipline is teaching and guiding. It involves providing a safe environment, being a positive role model, providing age appropriate activities, redirection, distraction, natural consequences, and teaching your children right from wrong. That can start at birth.

Of course your baby is "demanding and impatient". She's 8 months old! Wait until she hits 2! LOL.

NO, she cannot understand right from wrong at 8 months of age. But that doesn't mean you can't be a positive role model, provide a safe environment, and all of the age-appropriate elements of positive discipline.

My sister in law is a shrink. She didn't believe in spanking or so called "imposing gender" ( treating boys like boys and girls like girls) and so on. Her kids are a mess. They're both on 'medications' (Drugs) and they're just messed up.

We raised 6 kids the old fashioned way, in other words in her eyes we did everything wrong, and our kids all have grown up to be happy, healthy friendly loving and productive people.

Humans have been raising their offspring since the dawn of time, and we know naturally how to do it, just like every other animal on earth. If that weren't the case then we wouldn't be here. So raise the kid the old fashioned way, expecting her to behave and contribute as she is able. Be understanding but don't spoil her and don't take her BS. Understand that there will be times when she will be upset with you in her teens, but if you do the right thing in the long run she will know you did and respect you for it.

Shrinks and "experts" will only mess up the natural process with a whole lot of reasoning that may sound good but just isn't true. Case in point, they will tell you that violent murderers are almost always abused as children and grow up in authoritative homes. The truth, straight from a 30 year FBI study, the most violent criminals were almost always raised without discipline and never learned that there were consequences to their actions. The whole "He was mistreated as a child" thing came from defense attorneys trying to get their clients sympathy.

As far as how young is too young, the answer is as soon as she's old enough to understand what she did that you didn't like. You teach her what other words mean, don't forget to teach her what no means.

At 8 mos old, I dont believe they understand right from wrong, In my experience.. (and I have 3)

The walking age... around 1 is when they really start getting into things, I never whipped my children but at that age I would firmly say NO, and swat their little hands. And you don't even have to make it sting, it mainly just hurts their feelings and makes them realize that whatever they did was not acceptable.

And you're not too far away from time outs, My youngest is 2 and she she understands time out... I think I started the time out at about 18 mos. At that age, it does have to be like 5 mins or anything, I've always done 1 min per age, so now when my 6 yr goes in time out... he get 6 mins, my 4 yr old- 4 mins and my 2 yr old- 2 mins.

Good luck to you.

It depends on what kind of discipline you are talking about. She is of course too young for timeouts or taking toys away, etc.... I also wouldn't go into lengthy reasons about why we don't do this or that either.

When she is doing something she shouldn't, just gently and quickly say (for example), "Let's not hit the dog, let's use gentle touches.", and show her what that means. She is only 8 months so chances are, she's going to go back and try to do the same thing over and over but if you just stay consistent and teach her how to behave by explaining and showing her, she will get it eventually.

Start now with no. Right now she's very young and her attention span is limited so you can just redirect her to a safer/more age appropriate activities. When redirection stops being effective then try a trade.. she gets a hold of the tv remote... give her a child's remote that is safer makes noise or something more interesting.

You consider saying "no" discipline??? How in the world will they ever learn what is ok if you don't say good, yes, & no? At 8 months I was saying no biting and putting him down. Letting him know that if he hit his brother he would go to time out for a few seconds. So warnings of a time out became sufficient instruction. Also taking things away if he misused them. And now at 21 months he also knows when I count to 3 he needs to act or he goes in time out for not listening.

By the book?? Its 8 months. You're right there. I forgot which book it was, but it said 8 months I remember clearly.