I know, I mostly posted this as humor. She does love helping out by putting things away, closing doors, putting clothes in the dryer or in the clothes basket. I told her I was going to put her milk away and she grabbed it from me and tried to put it in the trash
At one year old, your child should constantly be supervised with no access to the bin (toddlers tend to put whatever they find in their mouth). You can give your child positive and negative feedback for their actions with manually correcting when needed.
She is supervised, both of us were in the kitchen with her. I caught the item before they were actually in the trash and helped redirect her to the correct location. She’s just excited she learned how to open the trash can and likes helping.
At the moment “put it away” means the trash can too. She’s just excited she learned how to open the lid. A quick redirection and she’ll put it away in the correct spot.
She’s sixteen months. I know it’s not something she should have grasped yet, I was mostly posting this as humor because she wants to be helpful around the house.
I avoid confusing phrases once I've learned that the phrases confuse the children. So for this child, I would have "put" and I would have "trash". And as I pointed to something or handed them something I would either say "put" or "trash". Clearly, the word "away" is presenting a challenge to them that is making this more difficult than it needs to be at this time in their life. Later on we can work on multi word phrases, maybe closer to 1 1/2 or two. Right now, one word.
i have a 2 year old and i can trust them with that difference - maybe it's just too young and they're still learning the distinction?
Alternatively, you could try making a game out of putting the milk cup around the room and putting it on the side. I know my child was super curious about the bin too.