Hellobee Boards

We are just starting it, DD is 23 months. Right now we sit her on the bottom step in the foyer for about a minute and explain what she did wrong. We'll see if it clicks...

Works very well with E. Like i said in the other post, I try to be very neutral/robotic/practical about it when I put her in time out and not be emotional about it. Just like..."you threw your cup. Let's go to your room for a bit"

I have a question on when to use time outs. DD doesn't do anything too naughty like throwing, hitting, biting, etc. For sure she would time out if she did any of that. My big issue with her is she doesn't listen. I'll tell her to sit down for dinner but she rather play. If I yell at her she ends up on the floor crying. Or she would just be in a bad mood and start throwing a tantrum for no reason. Do you do time outs for that kind of behavior?

We use time out with our 23 month old. I'm not totally sure if it works as a "threat" but she does understand that there is a not so fun consequence if she doesn't listen.

We used to do time outs, and his daycare utilized time outs- which I'm fine with. But I don't really use them anymore (unless it is more like removing him from a situation).
We've switched more to asking him if he needs to take a break, and he responds much better. So if he's throwing a tantrum and cannot calm himself, I will ask him if he'd like to be in his room alone until he feels better and he really finds it helpful. He'll go sit in his bed and cry for a little bit, then play for a little bit, and then come out much happier, typically. But this didn't start until he was 3.

@dolphin: "natural consequences" might be quite appropriate in that sort of situation, for example, if you don't come to the table then you don't get dinner. You've avoided the battle by giving your LO a choice and hopefully she'll decide she'd rather eat dinner!

@dolphin: I would use a time out for that, in the same way that @Raindrop: explained.

As I mentioned in the other thread, we use time outs and they are very effective for our family. Most of the time we can threaten a time out and the child will change behaviors.

Timeouts are honestly one of our only forms of effective punishment. She gets sad and actually calms down/thinks about what she did when she's removed from the situation and separated out from the rest of us.

We don't use them for a number of reasons:

-they would be horrible to enforce with our extremely clingy 2 year old;
-I don't like what I perceive tantrums to be "saying";
-emotional intelligence is one of my number one goals as a parent, and I think misbehaviour is a teaching oppotunity for emotional regulation;
-I don't like how I feel when I am engaging in punishment (anger, frustration);
-I think they conflict with my longer term goals as a parent.

I was raised in a very punishment-heavy household. I don't like the lessons that I learned from it - I felt like I was a bad kid and we had poor communication due to fear of punishment. I am actually a naturally obedient type of person, so I doubt that I really was all that bad. I don't want to create this type of dynamic in the household, so we are into positive parenting.

Coming from a punishment oriented upbringing, I also didn't understand positive parenting at first, so I have read lots of books and articles, listened to lots of podcasts, and will be starting a 10 week course on it in a couple of weeks! I still fear that my kids will turn out to be monsters from my lack of heavy handedness, but I suppose people worry about something with any parenting style.

@Rockies11: we do not believe in time outs for all the reasons stated here. Also, I personally feel that it tends to make the child focus on how their behavior affected them self (eg I hit so I got timeout and I'm mad) instead of others (eg., hitting hurt my friend). A little kid isn't doing the second type of thinking in timeout and that's the kind of thinking we want to foster. We do time-ins.

@daniellemybelle: for us, the most relevant time that we're teaching empathy is our 2 year old's conduct towards the baby. So when she's rough, deliberately or otherwise, I hold up the baby crying and I talk about how being a good friend means that we have to be gentle to the baby or else it makes the baby cry. Then we practice giving the baby "nice pats". When she is gentle, I compliment her on what a nice big sister she is and how lucky baby is to have her. We started doing this at 22 months, since that's when the baby was born. While she still misbehaves from time to time with the baby, she worries when the baby is sad and gives the baby "nice pats", and is proud of herself when she's nice to the baby - she calls herself "nice (firstname)" and smiles and struts around all pleased. We do the same type of thing with prosocial behaviour at the playground or on playdates, etc. - "see how when you took the ball away from that little boy, he cried? A good friend takes turns with the ball and waits until it's their turn. Can we be a good friend and give the ball back? Look, now he's smiling. That's what happens when we're a good friend".

I think, in terms of teaching or enforcing boundaries, it works to the same extent that anything else does. Saying "no hitting" and putting into time out doesn't cure hitting after the first go round, nor does any positive parenting way of dealing with the hitting problem. All any of us are trying to do is decrease problematic behaviour. For me, I prefer the messaging and social focus of the positive parenting approach, to the extent that they're developmentally capable of learning at this point.

@Mrs. Pen: not to hijack, but any reading recommendations you care to share? I am a bit skeptical of gentle parenting. Not because I don't think it works, but because everyone I know who implements it will be talking about how great it is and ignoring that there kid is jumping off a couch onto a baby or flipping the light switches like a mad man. But the methods tend to be in line with my goals and seem to work a lot better than getting into a power struggle with my kid. But I don't like signing up for any "method" wholesale.