Some of this I agree with, but be careful assuming that a child's reason can function like an adult's. Giving them choices sometimes helps them take control of

Some of this I agree with, but be careful assuming that a child's reason can function like an adult's. Giving them choices sometimes helps them take control of their lives, but sometimes (if they're already cognitively overwhelmed) being forced to choose is an unwanted stress. Absolutely, consistency is important, and putting some thought into what lesson the child is learning from your interaction (often not what you're trying to teach them). And the almost-always overlooked key to boundaries/rules is that the boundaries that are convenient to you are cruelly restrictive to your child, whose burning purpose in life is to do what you're doing -- reading your book, using your phone, typing on your laptop, exploring your food, putting on your makeup, etc.. This is learning; unfortunately it's inconvenient when they do physics experiments with the juice glasses, etc.. I've found it very eye-opening how much easier my toddler is once I realized that she could have access to almost everything as long as the interactions were carefully controlled and she learned rules along the way (the same rules we follow, really). Now she's far less excited by the laptop, phone, coffee mug, dinner plate, etc. because she's had a chance to explore them instead of being tormented by them put constantly just out of her reach. She has also learned not to tear book pages (we started with things headed for recycling anyway, and if she tore a page we were sad & took it away for "repair"), so she can flip through "grown-up" books safely -- another thing off the "frantically interested" list. She's most of the way to learning that she's allowed to see almost anything as long as she is careful not to drop it or mangle it. No punishments involved -- why punish someone for something they didn't know was wrong? -- it's all just learning, and she knows that things get put away when she doesn't interact with them the "right" way, so she has lots of motivation to learn the right way.