Monday, March 10, 2008

Time Out

Gary and I are sick. Well, I guess Kai is too. We've got a wide range of symptoms from Kai's week long cough to my intense headache which caused vomitting last night. I'm sitting here on the couch wishing that I could sleep, but alas, it is only 8pm. Kai is so precious and when I tell him that, he says `precious' which makes him even more precious.
We have been disciplining Kai for a while because he has known right from wrong for a long time. If he does something bad with a toy (like throw it or hit the glass with it) we take it away. This has worked well. However, our son likes to hit people at times. So, when he hits me, he goes to time out. Time out is a chair in the other room. He sits in it for one minute. He needs to say sorry when he comes out. Unfortunately, I think he likes it. Yesterday, he hit me in the face, with a playful smile, and then announced `Time out!' and ran into the other room and jumped onto his time out chair. When I went to see him, he said sorry. What a punk. I told him that he has to be gentle so he rubbed his slimy hands on my face and said `gentle, gentle'. So precious.
Here's our precious boy in his newest shirt, it says `Chicks dig me'. This was a gift from my dad's girlfriend Joanne, thanks Joanne! This evening, Gary took Kai to Canadian Tire so I could have a little time out myself. As soon as Gary put Kai down to pay for his items, Kai ran off in search of the bin of basketballs. This kid is crazy for balls. He came home and all he could do was say `balls! toots! balls! basket-buddy'. He says basket-buddy and peek-a-buddy to say that he wants to do these things with us; his buddy.
Oh wow, I feel sick. I do not like feeling like this. Tomorrow should be interesting with just Kai and I. He will prob. drive me nuts. Oh, but he is so precious:)

2 comments:

  1. I hope you all feel better really soon!!! I know how hard it is to care for a rambunctious little one when you're not feeling 100%!

    There is a school of thought (and I tend to agree) that says that a time-out needn't make the child feel bad to be effective. In fact, if the child feels bad, the discipline may not be as effective in the long run. The idea of the time out is to remove the child from the situation and location where they are misbehaving, and that's it. If the child enjoys the time out that's fine- what's important is that they are no longer misbehaving.

    When evaluating a method from a parenting book I like to think back at when I was a kid and remember or imagine how I would react to my parents' disciplinary methods. And if I were punished in such a way that I felt angry and sullen, I would feel like my parents were kind of the enemy and probably be more likely to act out in some way as a result of those feelings. However if I felt that the discipline was a natural or logical and fair consequence to my actions, administered without malice, then the lesson of the discipline would become internalized and I would not feel angry.

    That's my experience and opinion, for what it's worth.

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  2. Hmm I wonder where Kai got "buddy" from?
    I guess Gary giving you a time out was instead of taking the advice I gave him yesterday ;)
    Hope you have a good day

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