Hey all! I am typically by myself a lot with my three and a half year old boys and am curious what you all do for time aways. Mine will not sit on their own in a time out chair/ on the steps. I have to stand there for three minutes and hold them down. Meanwhile, his brother will come and try and "save" him from time away. They typically change their behavior after this but its just such a struggle. Also, does anyone else have a time of day when they both start throwing things/ acting quite crazy? If so, what do you do? Sometimes mine do this in the morning, last night it was 730 before bed... I didnt know if it is the age or just my two precious little ones. Thanks for the input
For time out's mine have to go sit in their bedroom. I don't care if it's on the floor, on a chair, or on the bed. But no playing with toys. Really, It's more of a calm down time, because for the most part I send them in there when they are throwing a tantrum or crying for no apparent reason. I tell them they can come out when they are ready to apologize/stop crying/stop throwing things...etc. As for throwing, my son just threw a ball across the room. They throw things all.the.time! :lol: I don't think you are alone, but no, there isn't any specific time of day they do it, it's all day long!
Lol! Thanks for the idea about the bedroom. I have heard using the bedroom as a place for punishment isnt good because you want them to want to go to bed..0r is that more for when they are younger? I can see me telling them to go to their room and them trying to get out so i would stand there with my hand on the door and they would retaliate by taking clothes out of drawers... Solo or not! They are SO ornary!!!!!
We always sent them to their rooms. Time outs may not be understood too well by 3.5 year olds. I try to go in there and explain what they did that was wrong etc. I still do that.
If they are not staying where you put them for time away then I'd use the supernanny technique and just keep returning them to the step/chair. Every time they get up and you have to take them back their time starts over again (and you mustn't talk to them at all when you take them back). Once they realise that you are not giving in and they're going to have to sit however many times they get up they should start staying put in the first place. You could try using their room or maybe just shutting them out of whatever room you are playing in with their twin so that they have no-one/thing to play with. If mine made a mess while in time out then once their time out was done they'd be clearing up all the mess before they got to go back and play. :girl_devil: As far as both going crazy, we never had a specific time of the day but if one went crazy then 99% of the time the other would to. I think it just comes from them feeding off each other because Eleanor and Ethan do it too. Plus even with my 8 and 9 year olds if one starts goofing around chances are the other will too. :tease: As long as there's no major risk of something important getting broken or someone getting seriously hurt I just let them get on with it. And try to remember that I will need to give them a good five minutes and multiple requests to get them to calm down. With three year olds throwing I would make sure that they had some small soft/light balls and direct them to those when they started. Even better if you can take them outside to let them charge about a bit when they kick off (although obviously it's not always possible).
Right about that age we started with the techniques from 1-2-3-Magic. It suggests that staying still isn't really the point of time out, it's simply time away to calm down. So we started doing time outs in any other room. If they wanted to play with something during their time out, that was OK. They just needed to be separate from everyone else. At first I thought it was crazy to allow kids to play or lie down or do whatever they wanted in time out, but it's been just as effective for us. And it entailed much less fighting and effort for me because my girls would fight time outs in the corner/time out mat, but not as much when I ask them to go spend four minutes in their room.
Thanks so much!!!!! I think my boys would do well with the 1-2-3 magic concept and Adult time outs are much muh needed!!!!
I've been using this kind of thing with my girls, either putting them in a room and/or in their cribs. I found at their age, they didn't 'get' or want to sit still for time out. Interestingly though, they were much better at it when they were younger at around 16-18 months. In fact T1 would go and sit down automatically if she hurt T2 without me even telling her to. Those were the days!
