Time Out Revision

When I was pregnant with Caleb, I wanted more than anything to be a stay-at-home mom. But that did not become a reality until he was two-years-old (after Sarah was born), so in the meantime, he spent his days at the Mel Carnahan Family Learning Center during the hours I was at work. It was a great facility and very convenient since it was right across the street from the high school where Josh teaches. I grew to love the girls who worked there, and they taught me a lot as a new mom.

One of the things I'm glad Caleb learned was how to sit in time out! He could graduate out of the baby room when he began to walk, so he entered the 1's and 2's room right after his 1st birthday. And if you know Caleb, it probably doesn't surprise you that he had to learn the concept of time out at an early age. :o) They had a time out chair, and I remember being shown that chair and being told that the kids would have to sit there for one minute per year of age. We wanted consistent discipline in his life, so to avoid confusion, we did our best to implement the same discipline in our house. We chose a time out spot and went from there.

The original spot was next to the front door of our house. It didn't take Caleb long to figure out, though, that if he scooted over just a bit, he could see the TV! So eventually I moved him over to the corner where the front door meets the door to our bedroom. It's actually similar to the Gosselin kids time out spot (yeah, I've mentioned that family in a previous post...I watch that show too much).

Recently, however, I noticed that he was very wiggly during time out or would talk. And the biggest problem was the fact that Sarah would walk over to him and start talking to him. Sort of cute, but that's not effective in the realm of discipline! Not to mention it seemed time outs were not deterring him from misbehaving.

I began to think of how to do something differently. I remembered that my friend, Sarah H, would have her kids sit at the kitchen table with their heads down for their time outs. So one morning about a month or two ago, I sat Caleb down and said, "Caleb, we are going to do your time outs differently now. If you misbehave or disobey mommy, you will sit here at the table with your head down." He replied, "Like at Miss Sarah's house?" Evidently, he noticed those time outs!

And so, our new time outs have been WAY MORE effective. Perhaps this ties in with my Training Up Caleb post. Wish I would have thought of it sooner! :o)