It is SO unfair. Girl Terror, despite being a stubborn little thing, has always been very easy to discipline. Time-out was the absolute worst thing she could imagine. The social isolation! The boredom! The agony of hurt feelings! She didn't have an older sibling, so she never got into hitting, biting, or any other physical issues. Well, yes, there was that time she bit Hubby's nipple and made him scream, but other than that she was great.
Boy Terror. Oh My God. This child is big. He finally figured out that all he really needs to do is lean on his sister, and she falls over. He has started hitting her. In our house, hitting is right up there with pushing someone out of a 10 story building, and watching them go SPLAT!! on the sidewalk below. We DO NOT hit. Except for him! He hits! He smacks, he pushes and pulls. So, we put him in time out. Folks, the time-out does not work. He does not feel isolated, he is happy for the quiet time alone. His feelings are not hurt. It makes perfect sense to him: "I hit, therefore I must spend time here alone. Hmmm. Wonder what I should sing?" He knows not to hit or push. He knows why. But he doesn't stop! He says he doesn't want time-out, but the reality is he doesn't mind it at all.
Yesterday, he coloured one leg of his pants with a black crayon. He happily went to time-out to think about why we don't colour our clothes. Afterwards, he told me "We don't colour pants. Just paper. It's bad to colour clothes. I not do it again. Maybe a paper towel will clean it?" Was he perturbed? Not a bit.
At supper tonight, he kept putting his foot on the table. I said to him (after removed the offending toes several times) "Do you want to go to time-out?" and the little turkey said "Yup!" and hopped down and went to time-out.
WHAT THE HELL?! What do I do now?! Do you have a kid like this? What on earth do you do with him?!
12 comments:
Hey,
Maybe it's time for groundings.....aka he looses a privlige or some thing along that lines?
You ever heard of paddles? They're for his bum. My Dad did this, and I think I am beter for it.
Discipline.....good stuff discipline.......
Where is Boy Terror's time-out place?
I'm a big fan of the Naughty Step, then they see other people getting on with fun stuff.
Sorry, Hoss, but I don't think paddles are legal in the UK any more....
cq
oops - Michele sent me, Tammy...
LOL tammy my mom always said that timeout never worked for me either Iloved the solice of my room. My brother hated it. I'd move to taking things away this works with one of mine.
The first time I ever saw a "time out" in action I was amazed it worked. I am a believer in that little bit of child rearing, Tammy. That said, human nature is quite variable and no one approach is going to work on everyone. Your son is just not going to respond to that bit of applied psychology. You might want to glance at a book on dog training. You'd be surprised at how well it translates to training kids too.
Michele sent me to sympathize with you, Tammy.
Don't worry...it will pass... I would just continue with the time outs and gradually make them longer. Or do fun things with your daughter during his time outs that he would want to be a part of - then he might realize that time out is a punishment.
A good book that I read was Siblings Without Rivalry by Barbara Colorosso (not sure if I spelled that correctly). It helped a lot with my kids.
First off, paddling is also illegal in Canada. Parents are permitted only to use their hand for correction and only between the ages of 2 and 12.
I am slso curious as to where his time out place is. Clearly it is not unpleasant enough for him would be my thought. I have friends who made time out to be just sitting on a stool in the kitchen by themselves, without being able to get off. My daughter's time out was in her "mad chair" - a pink funfur covered foam thing...you all know the kind. She was not permitted to get out of this pink chair until her timeout was up. She learned it well, and physical punishment was never used in my house. I had been pounded enough as a child and didn't think anyone deserved the beatings I recieved. I wasn't even a bad kid, unlike my brother who was hell on wheels.
With our oldest, we had a timeout chair. After a while, though, that ceased to work, so we put his nose in the corner, hands at his side, for the as many minutes as years old. Seems to work pretty good for his little sister, too, although she's far more of a drama queen about it. If the situation merits (i.e. if they're misbehaving with a toy) we will take things away from them. For our oldest, the punishment is more our disappointment than anything else, while our youngest focuses more on the actual punishment.
I had this same boy terror living with me. Sorry I can't help. I tried everything, time out (give me a break) never worked. And thanks to Oprah, you can't beat them. I finally just had to give up and hope for the best. But then he never had a sibling he could hurt, so giving up may not be an option for you. You might try telling her to hit him back. Usually stops bullies.
I am, however, getting my revenge now that The Boy is 16. I spend my days thinking of new ways I can embarrass him in front of his friends.
Picking him up wearing my jammies while blaring AD/DC on the car radio is the current front runner.
Mine were hitters. When they were very small, I simply held their hands up, gently, allowing the elbows to bend, and counted to ten. At 18mos, it worked great. As they got older, only one continued to hit and I continued with the same thing, but counting higher, (thirty was the most). By five, that one was done with it, too. Good luck and thanks for poppin' over today. :)
I'm coming into this late, but what we do is take away choices. Preferably logical ones, like the current favorite toy, but any privilege will do, "you've lost the choice to..." [have dessert] [have extra playtime in the bath] [listen to your music in the car] [watch TV] [sit with us at the table]. These work for us.
The flip side, which we also use, is sticker charts and positive feedback. E.g., a sticker for every day he doesn't [do the bad behavior], and once he gets a certain number of stickers, he gets a prize. I've used this effectively for potty training, for playing quietly in his room and not waking me up too early, and most recently, for getting a daily good report from his teacher (and we take away a sticker for a bad day).
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