But the effort it takes for me to get him to go to time out, let alone stay there, is Herculean, at the very least. (That is not to say I'm always successful. I still have to resort to the crib T.O. sometimes, which I do not like to do.) Not an easy feat when I'm also trying to feed/play with/keep alive Mad Dog.So another plea for help. I've asked before and you've responded, but I need some more ideas and support. Please tell me what I'm overlooking. Eli is 2 1/2 (he'll be three in August). How do you keep a child in time out without strapping them into a time out chair?!?! (Speaking of which, that used to work for us as 99% of Eli's tantrums would be during meal time. I could just turn his chair around and set the timer - he couldn't go anywhere. Those were the days!)
Oh, and when I picked him up from school today, his teacher told me he had several time outs at school today. So he's acting up all around....the testing of limits is in full effect!!!
5 comments:
Oh how I wish I had more advice for you because we are in the same boat. I too am forced to continue on with "time out" in hopes that the storm will break soon.
I'm going to keep coming back to see if you by chance get another response from a fellow Mom because I, like you, want to pull my hair out some days, lol.
I thought I was the only one who couldn't keep a 2 1/2-yr-old in time out. We actually just started using T.O. because I didn't think my son "got it" before. So I set up a little chair in a corner of the living room. When he doesn't want to sit on the chair for the required time (usually 1 minute), I stay there with him and talk to him for that minute. If he gets up, I put him right back. I also have a 3-month-old I'm trying to spend time with through all this, so I know how you feel about your baby girl.
I don't have much advice as Ryan has tested us in this area and I'm not sure if what I did was correct or not. However, I would take away something else that he liked if he couldn't do what I asked him to. 9 times out of 10 it was stories before bed. He hated loosing those even worse than he did sitting in time out for 2 minutes. Eventually he decided that sitting there was better than loosing stories :)
I'll pray for you. Have you tried praying with him when he acts this way? Having him ask Jesus to help him have self control? Just a thought. We tried that also with Ryan.
Hmm, if the mood is jovial, and he's just rambunctiously losing control, I'd suggest having him stop where he is and do a self-control pose and count to ten. Do that twice, then send him to time out if it doesn't work.
We have Austen do that...sit where she is indian style with her hands in her lap for a minute, just to settle her down. But the counting to 10 slowly is how most experts suggest everyone get themselves back into check.
But definitely find a way to differentiate from "bad" lack of control and "normal" lack of control.
Not much else to say but hold your ground. I'll pray for you too. I agree with Heather, if you can find something that he loves to 'put in time out', that might work better than regular time out.
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