Out of Time
At our last pediatrician appointment a couple months ago, the doctor mentioned that our girls are now apparently at the age where we're supposed to start introducing the "Time Out" when our girls misbehave. I guess they're finally old enough to understand things like "rules" and "boundaries" and "not biting your twin sister's face". It didn't seem like a particularly big deal to me at the time. I mean, the "Time Out" seems pretty simple in concept. Your kid does something bad, you put them in the corner and make them stare at the wall for a minute or two. What could be simpler than that?
Concept - simple. Implementation -- not so much. For starters, Kathy and I had a heckuva time identifying an appropriate Time Out "corner". Our house has no spare corners - all our corners are filled with various toddler-related paraphernalia. Seriously, these girls have completely taken over our whole frickin' house. Anyway, after Kathy and I designed a little makeshift "corner" in our hallway and tried to put Operation Time Out into effect, we ran into a bigger problem, which I'm thinking must be pretty unique to twins. Here's how it all goes down:
- Riley tries to bite Leah. Parents firmly say "No biting!" in unison and then sit Riley down on a stool in Time Out Corner.
- Riley screams and squirms and struggles to get out of Time Out Corner. Parents struggle to keep a violently-flailing Riley in her stool.
- Leah watches with curiosity for a few seconds. After about ten seconds, Leah decides that she misses Riley's company and that Time Out Corner looks like a fun little destination. She springs into action.
- Leah grabs a stool and carries it over to Time Out Corner. She sits down on the stool with a proud grin on her face. She is very pleased with herself. She giggles.
- With her parents being momentarily distracted, Riley escapes Time Out Corner but trips over a toy while making her escape and falls, face-planting into the ground in a quite-spectacular fashion. She cries hysterically. Parents puzzle over the question of what you're supposed to do when the child injures him/herself during a "Time Out". First instinct is to comfort the child, but doesn't that violate the whole concept behind the "Time Out"? Dang, need to consult our Time Out handbook - where'd we put that thing?
- Meanwhile, Leah sits in Time Out Corner, sucking her thumb, staring at the wall.
So, to summarize: Riley tries to bite Leah, and 90 seconds later, we are comforting Riley while Leah takes a Time Out. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think that's the way it's generally supposed to work.
Our girls are usually pretty well-behaved, so we've only had to resort to the Time Out about three times in the past couple months. Which is good, 'cause Kathy and I sure do suck at this discipline thing.
posted by Dave @ 10:02 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
...and prepare yourself for the deluge of unsolicited baby advice. :)
Myself being without a child of my own, my advice is pretty worthless. However, seeing that a healthy portion of my job consists of disciplining unruly children I can hardly resist.
I would imagine sending half of a set of twins to time out (which we so crunchily refer to at work as the "Reflection Chair") is not unlike sending one child out of a set of 16 or 20. Of course, we only go as young as three year-olds so I'm sure their are some major differences.
I'm guessing the length of the time out would probably be no longer than a minute -- maybe sing the alphabet in your head to time it? We usually have the "minute-per-year" rule for the preschoolers on up, but two minutes seems too long for 2 year-olds.
If she's kicking and screaming chances are the mere action of stopping her from doing whatever she was doing wrong (i.e. whatever was fun) is punishment enough or that she doesn't get the connection between whatever it was she did and the fact that she is being forced to sit in some corner.
Again -- purely work-based speculation. Not at all from the experience of being a parent. I completely defer to all of the advice from actual parents. (Don't throw rocks at me.)
How adorable is it that Leah brings a chair over to time-out???
Pretty darn adorable, actually. I need to practice my stern disciplinarian face -- you need to give us lessons on that!
I don't know that I have it in me to give my genius nieces the teacher look. I may wither away in their adorableness.
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