[Alamo-Girl]

Take that as an actual case-in-point. If you are in a room full of two year olds, trying to have a conversation with another adult - and the kids start acting up and you leave, the message will be, to them, that they can control the room by being disruptive. Ditto if you stop the conversation and scold them or send them outside.

But if you speak over their heads (language not volume) to the other adult letting him know that you are ignoring them so as not to reward the behavior and continue talking, the two year olds will realize acting up is not working and will return to playing with each other.

[tacticalogic]

If you have that conversation at a table, and the two year olds insist that they all need a place at the table and need to be included in that conversation, do you let them?