My son will be 2 years old in a few months, but I think he’s starting to embrace the terrible 2′s with gusto already. Don’t get me wrong, he’s actually a great kid. He plays well with others, he hardly ever gets upset. He treats things well and listens most of the time. Most people tell me he’s so well-behaved and happy. And he is.

But he has this habit of smacking me. Or pulling my hair. Or pinching me. Usually this happens when he’s frustrated and can’t communicate himself well, and it almost always happens now when we’re in public places because I don’t allow him to go running off and I make him hold my hand if he won’t sit in his stroller or the shopping cart.

We introduced the idea of a naughty corner a while ago to mixed success. When he’s put in the corner, he stays there and he waits until the time is up. He’ll even take himself there when you tell him he has to go to the naughty corner. The part that doesn’t seem to be working is that he seems happy enough when he’s there; like he’s thinking, “That’s cool. I was gonna stand here anyway.” When his time is up, he dutifully gives a sorry hug and then he’s on his way. The problem is that he’s too young to understand that he’s supposed to be thinking about why he’s there and that it’s meant to be disciplining him and deterring him from repeating his naughty behavior. He just does it again and again. And we keep putting him in the corner again and again. Consistency and all that jazz.

So I was starting to think I needed some new tricks. Enter Supernanny. My husband and I don’t regularly watch her show, but we have caught it a few times when we’ve been channel surfing and it’s been on. We find that we like Supernanny’s methods because they’re quite similar to what we believe parenting should be like (discipline fairly, praise freely, maintain a routine, be consistent, etc.). So I thought I’d place a hold on her book and see if there’s anything I haven’t thought of yet.

There wasn’t. We pretty much do everything she discusses. We have the naughty corner. We use the involvement technique (as a way to deter naughty behavior). We put our son to sleep at night with similar methods. But just because I didn’t learn anything new from her book isn’t to say that it isn’t a good resource. I’d say it’s a fabulous resource for parents who are looking for structure and routine as a way of shaping and directing children towards good behavior.

I came away after reading this book to understand that I just have to keep up what I’m doing — be consistent until my son is old enough to understand a little better what the naughty corner means. He’s just too young to figure out yet that just because Mommy or Daddy said no to hitting them that one time doesn’t mean he can hit any other time either. I figure he’ll grow out of the phase once he can better communicate his frustrations and understand boundaries a little more. And until then, I’ll just leave him at home with Daddy when I need to go out in public ;)

And since this is a book review, I’ll end here by saying I think this is a great book. My only criticism is that I think I would have liked more “troubleshooting tips” for specific examples/scenarios (ie. what do you do with a nearly 2 year old son who is being naughty, but doesn’t understand what naughty means?), but that’s content for a whole other book. I wouldn’t buy it for anyone other than yourselves though, since I don’t think most parents would take kindly to someone gifting them a book on parenting, if you know what I mean ;)