There was a time in my son’s early toddlerhood that the threat of a time out in the corner was enough motivation to help keep my son’s behavior in check. When he did act out in such a way that warranted a time out, he took his punishment well without much protest or defiance.
Recently, using time outs as a way to curb his bad behavior has become quite ineffective. Instead of going in the corner and waiting quietly for his two minutes to pass, he now whines, hits and kicks, will not stay, or will not be quiet. Instead of improving his behavior and his attitude they both got worse and as a result we were all quite exhausted and frustrated. Something needed to be done; a new approach to discipline needed to be found.
So I started talking to him about good choices and bad choices and the different consequences for each: desirable consequences for good choices and undesirable consequences for bad choices. I have been giving my son choices for a long time; choices of what to wear or what to eat (choices between two things not many) so the concept of choices is not new to him. It actually seemed to really click with him. Instead of doing time outs when he acted out (made a bad choice), I would ask him if he was making a good choice or a bad choice. Once he understood (at some level) the difference between a good choice and a bad choice, I introduced the idea of the consequence, which was more clearly directed towards bad choices (even though his good choices also involved pleasant consequences). He still received warnings for bad behavior usually by telling him that what he was doing needed to stop and if it did not he would have to have a consequences…
(To be continued…)