I've never been 100% sure if a 'timeout' is the right method for our Turbo, or for either kid for that matter as Smiley will start to break the rules soon I'm quite sure. I know there are other approaches, but we've used timeout with varying success. Turbo does not like timeout at all and will avoid it at all costs... which I guess says that it is effective.
I've seen episodes of Supernanny where the parents will use timeout for the first time with a willful child and the show will count how many times the child got up from the 'naughty spot' and had to start over with their 3 minutes of timeout. It always seemed to me that the show only counted when it was really, really bad.
Um, yeah, I think some records were broken tonight at our house. I didn't count, and maybe I should have just to get it on the record books. Hello, Guinness?
Let's recap with some highlights:
- Turbo called us, "stinky and poopy" about a dozen times.
- He begged us, "stop chasing me around the room like that."
- He stole the timer once, believing that it was the key to stopping this timeout nonsense.
- At one point he was up and down so much that I stopped resetting the timer and handed it to Smiley as I changed her into her jammies. She loved that and made it beep-beep-beep with rapid succession that almost confused poor Turbo.
In the end, just like on every Supernanny episode that features a timeout, our child sat quietly in the same spot and timeout eventually ended.
When it was time for bed, which was just a few moments ago, he drifted off into sleep faster than he has in a long time. Tantrums'll do that to ya.
