Timeoutis tricky business in my home. My son really does not like to be put intimeout. When told to go and sit on the timeout step he will yell “No!” andtake off, running laps around the house. It is not until he completly understands that I meanbusiness will sit in timeout.
Goingto his room for timeout is another battle. It is when he has been reallynaughty that the “Go to your room” card gets played. And then I feel like it isa battle to get him up to his room. Oh the joys of timeout…
Oncetimeout has been established he is perfectly content to sit quietly andpatiently for the one-to-two minute timeout. Once his time is up he will ask ifhe is all done and he will apologize for whatever behavior got him put intimeout to begin with. Good, right?
No– not good. The timeout has become a band-aide for misbehaving. For thatmatter, so has “I’m sorry.” My son knows when he has done something wrong. Heknows when he is going to be in trouble for doing something, and yet he stilldoes it. I know that he is testing his boundaries and seeing how far he canpush the limits. I know that this is typical three year-old behavior-especially for boys, but come on! This has got to get better!
Whenhe is not running away from time-out he is placing himself in timeout – hoping thatthis will be a sufficient punishment for whatever he has done wrong. Forexample, we went to the park and William shoved Steven on the playground andSteven started to cry. William walked to the park bench and sat down. Heinformed me that he was in timeout for two minutes, and that it would be allbetter. Seriously… what kid puts himself in timeout?
Whenasked why he was in timeout he was able to tell me exactly what he did. Whenasked if that was a good decision, he knew that it was not. I kick myself fornot following this up with the question about WHEN he knew it was a baddecision. In retrospect {because hindsight is 20/20} I should have asked my sonif he knew before or after that shoving his baby brother was not the rightdecision.
SoI let him have his timeout. When it was over he went up to his brother and toldhim he was sorry and gave him a kiss to make him better. Then we went back toplaying. He did not shove his brother again while at the park and we had a niceday playing outdoors. No temper tantrum, no melt down.
WhatI struggle with is that I am not sure if he really thinks about his decisionsbefore he makes them and is timeout really the best solution? What do youthink?
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