Yes, and yes. :-) From our friends, your kinds are the best behaved. I shake your hand sir.

Shem

Best behaved ever.. thats a laugh... I wish !

It is true the more you work at it the better the result.

so have we done this thread to death now havent we... :)

Hey J.... I learned a few tricks from you guys :-) Your kids are the best behaved I've ever seen.

- Grasshopper

All hail Shem - master of the 2 year old...

Sometimes they are a handful... nuff said..

I don't want any of my hard earned taxes going to some kid of yours that's waiting to be processed at xmas island :o

Far from the holy one m8! Just found something that works for us. Besides, nobody touches that remote when the V8s are on. Any such kid is immediately sent to Chrismas Island. :*)

Now.... how to deal with a pregnant wife.... that's another story.... :^O

Shem

Thanks for the wise words, oh holy one. I didn't realise you were that in tune with things :) You must run some 'How to be a Daddy' classes.

John, as a parent, you are in the drivers' seat mate. Your kids do what you allow them to. If your child opens doors etc. it's because at some point a parent ignored this behaviour or (worse) allowed it to happen because it was (the first two times) amusing.

Be CONSISTENT. Both parents have to agree on what is OK and what isn't and STICK to the rules. Make sure grandma and grandpa follow the same rules too (this if bloody hard, as grandparents always think they know best and screw up anything you teach your kids by giving them WAY too many freedoms.... *sigh*).

My two year old son does not open cupboards. In fact, he closes them behind us if we leave them open. We have never taped or superglued anything. But we were also determined from day one to discourage this behaviour and to never let it go unnoticed.

Nor does Peter play with remotes. We always tell him NO and the remote sits on the coffee table, and guess what... he doesn't touch it!!! ... not until he is old enough to know what a remote is and how it works. It's all about giving the correct amount of freedom to match the level of maturity and responsibility of the child, gradually, and in a controlled manner. Why would you let a two-year old play with a remote? Is the child old enough to understand it? No. Is there any benefit for a two-year old to use it? No. So the answer must always be no :-) But if you give up and say "yes" just once.... your hard work is down the drain and you are sending mixed messages. Bad. At some point, your friends let their daughter play with a remote. It's as simple as that :-)

My son plays with audio equipment. This is normally not good. Why does he do this? Because I'm a nut-case DJ fanatic and I let him scratch and spin records when he was 1.5 years old. But I knew he would max out my volume on my amp. I was OK with this, so long as he didn't do it to other peoples' equipment. Most people wouldn't be OK with this so they should not allow it. You have to decide what is OK and what isn't, and stick with it.

It's a two-year-old..... not an out-of-control Cadillac :^) In your hands driver.... in your hands....

Shem

PS: There are excellent books on this topic I can recommend.... exactly about this sort of thing....

PPS: This must mean there's a kid coming. About friggin' time you suffered along with the rest of us. Muuuhahaha. :^)