I need to get this book. I can feel the veneer of my patience slipping. My daughter is 22 months, and she's definitely in the boundary-pushing stage, and trying to assert control over as much as she can.
One trick I developed: The 123 thing is great for stopping a behavior, but not necessarily for starting one, such as getting into the bathtub. For those things, I used a count-down: 10, 9, 8...
My kids never found out what happened if I got to zero.
I think the method was useful because it distracted them from whatever they actually wanted to do, just long enough to get their minds on what I wanted.
