Spitting---driving Me Crazy

My 19 month old started doing this and I finally lost my patience. I have started putting him in time out. I tell him that if he wants to spit then he goes in time out. I know that you aren;t "supposed" to put a child in time out at this age, but I exhausted all other options and NOTHING worked and I had it. By the way, ignoring it DOESN'T work! I tried it for two weeks and it just reinforced the bad behavior. I don't keep him in time out long, but it nipped it in the bud and it is not an issue anymore. I can go out in public again!

Our second daughter was a spitter-not sure why or where she got it from but she was. When she would spit at us, or anyone else, we would sit her down, sometimes it was more like hold her down, telling her that we don't spit-it's nasty and no one wants to see that and if she was going to spit she had to sit alone and that she could spit on herself. Gross, I know but it worked for us-she only spit on herself a couple of times before she quit spitting. She really thought spitting on herself was really defying us and so she would do it and we would say that's fine if you spit on yourself-well she quit because it wasn't a big deal anymore-she is a real power struggler so this worked for us. HTH

You could try saying, "Ok, if you want to spit, then spit in this cup." Then take a plastic, clear cup & draw a line to show how much spit should be in there. Then have the child sit & spit until they fill it up to the line.

I agree with the last response. Spitting is a control thing. If you don't make a huge deal about it, then it will probably stop. When I taught in daycare, I had a spitter. I told her it was fine to spit on herself, but not anyone else. I didn't make a big deal out of it, and it soon stopped. Sometimes, the more we get irritated at something, the more they will do it just to get a reaction.