How to dicipline 2 year olds

I'm having a hard time diciplining C&C. Earlier this evening Caleb outright pushed Connor and Connor started crying of course. I firmly told Caleb that we do not push and he is going to go in timeout - which was a chair that faces the corner of the wall.

He wouldn't take it seriously. He kept pointing at things and smiling, it's like he didn't get it at all - didn't get why he was in there and didn't get that it was a bad place to be.

This is something that's on going - he just doesn't care if he's in "timeout". His crib doesn't work either - he LOVES it in there!

Anyone else have any other way of discipling their kids?

 

What we do is when they do something wrong take them to the T/O chair sit them down and tell them why they are on their level and then go about our business. As long as they dont get up for their 2 min im fine with it. If they get up I go get them put them back on the chair and reset the timer to 2 min. If they make the whole 2 min I go to the chair get down on their level and tell them again why they were there tell them that we dont do what ever it was they did and they have to tell me sorry. if they hit someone or something of that nature they also have to say they are sorry to that person.

Soon enough they will learn that t/o is a place they dont want to be. But in the mean time thats all it is a time out from what ever problem they were involved in. So if they are sitting there thats half the battle lots of people cant even get their little ones to do that.

Good Luck!

 

I don't have a good answer to your question, but FWIW, Amy has the same reaction to timeout. We don't do it formally, but if she does something really bad, I plunk her on the couch or something. She usually just giggles and tries to climb over the back of the couch. I try to think of it not as punishment (and it fails utterly as that in any case), but just as removing her from a situation.

I just asked the daycare teachers how they handle this (since they don't use timeout either), and they say they have a "calm down" area. They will escort the child there and tell them to stay until they are ready to share, treat their friends nicely, etc. Of course sometimes they don't stay there, but if they come out and then repeat the misbehavior, they just get escorted right back there again. The teachers don't care what the kids do when they're in the calm down area as long as it isn't disruptive or destructive. All that matters is whether they can behave appropriately when they come out again.

As for what the teachers do if the kids ARE disruptive or destructive in the calm down area.... I'm a little fuzzy on that. :huh:

 

QUOTE(nikki_0724 @ Jan 8 2008, 04:43 PM) [snapback]563691[/snapback]
Soon enough they will learn that t/o is a place they dont want to be. But in the mean time thats all it is a time out from what ever problem they were involved in. So if they are sitting there thats half the battle lots of people cant even get their little ones to do that.

Good Luck!


I think this is a great point. I'll try to keep this in mind when they are laughing in my face next time.

FWIW, I'm also unfortunately one of those people who can't even get their little ones to sit still.

 

I had to move my son's time out area to the hallway, as opposed to staying in the living room. When it was in the living (still in the middle of the action) it was like a game to him. He hated having to go to another room and the timeouts dramatically decreased.