I have actually found that even though Jacob is not yet 2, he is a clever little sausage who was also testing boundaries and we really believe he needed to start to understand that when he does X, Y happens...always - no doubt about it - there are always consequences.

If he is doing something he shouldn't be doing, we do a similar thing to what Kelly said - e.g. we will tell him "Don't hit Jacob. We don't hit people - it hurts". If he continues, we say to him "do you want to go into there?" which usually meets with him walking away calmly from what he was doing or immediately stopping. We also say to him "what do we do when we hurt someone? We say sorry and give a kiss and a cuddle" (we like him to understand that he can 'do' something to rectify the situation/the hurt he's caused IYKWIM?). Interestingly enough, he has learnt this, so most of the time (not always) he will come over and give a kiss or a cuddle by way of apology (although he doesn't actually say it - that's beyond his speech abilities ATM).

I should point out that the "there" place that I refer to is actually the playpen LOL, but he KNOWS that he gets put in there for a minute or so if he misbehaves (can you believe we can even say the same line to him if he misbehaves whilst we are out? I'm not sure how long this will last LOL, but for now, the 'threat' that something WILL happen is enough to difuse the situation).

The same applies if he throws a toy - we ask him not to and tell him that we don't throw toys and that it will be taken away if he does it once more. Sure enough, if he does it once more, the toy is immediately removed and he doesn't get it back for the rest of the day.

Having said all of that, we try to be pretty brief with our explanation as to why things are wrong at this stage as we feel that by talking in too much detail about it will only confuse him IYKWIM? I guess we are trying to take into account his age (he's not 22 months yet!), and the older he becomes, the more explanation we will give, just like Jillian does with Lochie and Joshua, i.e. asking them to think about why they have upset Mummy and to say sorry.