Thursday, October 25, 2012

Time out

I try to pick my battles when it comes to disciplining Luca.  Along with this idea, I do not enforce time-outs for just anything.  It has to be for something that is dangerous, disrespectful, or if I think she just needs a minute to regroup.  The main two things I have put her in time-out for are biting my leg while I am on the phone or answering an email, and for feeding the dog.  I leave her for a maximum of 2 minutes, because as a toddler, I think 2 minutes is probably plenty long.

The time-outs are backfiring though.  What do I do when my child puts herself in a time-out?!  It started when she started hollering for me.  I went down the hall to find her pointing to Tessa eating out of the box of teddy grahams.  I picked up the box and scolded the dog.  Then, Luca signed "go" and went to her room to the spot I put her in when she gets a time-out.  I asked "oh did you feed Tessa?", she answered yes.  Now, I am realizing that she is purposely feeding Tessa in order to go into a time-out.  Well, this clearly is not working!

I think what she likes most about time-out is what happens after the time-out.  I go back to her, explain why she was in a time-out, ask her to say sorry, and then she has to give love.  Well each time when I go back in the room, she is squealing with excitement to say sorry and give hugs.

Needless to say, the time-outs are not accomplishing quite what I wanted them to.  I will keep trying them, but in the meantime, I clearly need to find some other ways to teach her that she cannot do certain things. Back to the drawing board...

Do you use time-outs?  What other methods have you used to help teach your toddlers?

4 comments:

  1. That is so adorable!

    We haven't attempted time outs yet but probably should. I just don't think AM will sit still for any given length of time. How do you even introduce timeouts?

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    1. This is how I started:
      I decided to start doing it for bigger mishaps - like biting me, or something dangerous she should not play with. I told her no and then walked calmly to the designated time-out place. I told her in about 6 words why she was in a time-out. I stepped just outside the room. Each time she stood up, I walked back in and said "you are in a time-out and need to stay put." After about the 3rd time-out, she understood she was supposed to stay there. I keep them short - probably started them for about 30 seconds, then gradually increased them. They do tend to help calm her down.

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  2. HA! Sorry to laugh, but Kennedy used to the do the same or she would tell me to go to Time Out when she thought I did something that was disobedient.

    We still use timeout, but the girls have to sit on a step. Now that Mackenzie is bigger we are starting to have "badgering" issues, where she asks for things over and over even after being told no. So I read 1-2-3 Magic, which has helped. Good luck!

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    1. We laugh about it too, Sarah. I have to keep a straight face when she does it! I will have to look into 1-2-3 Magic...thanks for the suggestion. I do like that L seems a bit calmed down after a quick time-out. And it also gives me a minute to regroup. We will keep trying ;)

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