At least for the moment, Matthew is remarkably accepting of "time outs" for discipline. The other day he was turning off the TV when James was trying to watch Elmo, and kept doing it after I told him not to. I was holding James and said, "James, I have to put you down because Matthew needs a time out." Matthew immediately stopped playing with the TV and walked toward the hallway (the time-out spot) holding his teddy bear, and said, "I take my time-out with my bear." Then a few seconds later he said, "Mommy come." So we sat and I counted to twenty, and then he wanted "more time out" so I counted again, and then he happily went back and played in the living room without messing with the TV. A similar thing happened at the gym last night. We gave them a cup of water, and Matthew squeezed it and the water spilled on the floor (on purpose). I told him that was a no-no and not nice, and as I was swooping him away for a time out, he said, "Have a time out. No waste other people's water. They be sad." And after his time out, he went back to playing and didn't make any effort to get back to the water.
So, it's not clear whether time out is a deterrent, but it usually seems to do pretty well for stopping the behavior and redirecting him, so that's all right with me. (And in fairness, Mattie is usually a pretty well-behaved kid, but he and James don't always realize that no means no!)
1 comment:
Well, it seems the time-outs are doing exactly what they are supposed to. The fact that he's accepting of them, and willing to take them, means he's remarkably self-aware and realizes he's out of bounds and needs to settle down a bit. Good boy!
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