What is your method for effective time-out?

MY DD is 21 months now and definitley starting to test me. She will blatanly ignore me telling her no and continue to do things. She will also do things she knows is bad and watch me for my reaction while doing them. I think it is time to start time out but I am kind of lost. I don't want to just plunk her down in a corner because I know she will never stay there. Any tips?

Re: What is your method for effective time-out?

The Wiki-How Method I researched worked great for me...

*How to Do a Successful Time out With Your Child*

Children are not born knowing right from wrong. Putting them in time out for a few minutes will allow them to reflect on their actions and hopefully to behave. The best part about it is, you can do a time out outside, in the store, or in a public place. Read this article to find out how to do a successful time out.

Steps

Do a Successful Time out With Your Child Step

1. When he/she misbehaves, get down to his/her level and in a firm authoritative voice (without yelling) give him/her a warning. "NAME, you do not (insert behavior). If you (insert behavior) again, you will be in time out."

2. If he/she does it again, place him/her in time out. Get down to his/her level and explain why he's/she's in time out. "(NAME), you are placed in time out because you (insert behavior) when I asked you to stop. You will stay here for (insert minutes) minutes." 4 year old gets 4 minutes. 2 ½ year old get 2½ minutes.

3. If he/she gets up then place him/her back without giving him/her eye contact and reset the timer until he/she stays there for X minutes. If they lock themselves in a room where you can't get in, don't try to unlock the door and get them. Eventually they will get bored in there and will want attention so once they are out you can place them back in timeout. Along with not making eye contact, also do not say anything during the "place back" time.

4. Once the number of minutes has passed, come back, get down to his/her level and explain why he/she was placed in time out, "(NAME), you were placed in time out because you did not listen to mommy when I asked you to stop (insert behavior). What do you say?" If he/she does not apologize, he/she will not get up and he/she will do time out again and you repeat the process.

5. Hug your child and never mention this behavior again.

...it is literally this simple and this black and white. DO NOT deviate from this! You'll get into a bickering mess before you know it and it will become completely ineffective.

This works wonders for me. My son turned 2 years old TODAY, actually! I started this at around 18 months as he is an over-achiever and started acting like a little heathen a lot sooner than most

I use this method in conjunction with:

The Take Out Time Out Mat...

IMAGES OF THESE KINDS OF MATS HERE

You can just get it on Amazon. Put the mat in a very benign, boring, blah corner.

I also bought the timer that the Super Nanny recommends -- it lights up as the time counts down so they understand when the time has been reset -- that they are just making it worse for themselves. WORKS WONDERS!!! And then they understand when the bell goes off that they are done and they are so eager to say sorry. One time, all I did was pick up the timer and show it to him! I didn't even have to say "Julian, you do not pull on the dog's tail..... ETC" --- I didn't have to say a word, I just picked up the timer as I happened to be standing next to it and the look on his face was OH SHIT. And he just stopped

I got it on Amazon as well but the site is blocked at work so here is what it looks like:

IMAGES OF TIME TRACKER

It is the thing that looks like a stop light with the red, yellow, and green!

If you just search TIME TRACKER on Amazon it comes up.

Same thing with TAKE OUT TIME OUT -- the travel time out mat


HTH! It is so effective!


ETA -- when the timer and mat arrived I did set it up and I leave it out in the boring corner of my townhouse that I chose for it. It stays there. When I had a moment of nice and quiet and Julian's full attention I brought him over to it and sat with him and explained that this is the "Calm Down Corner" and that when he has been a bad boy or disobeys or doesn't listen, etc. he will be placed here for two minutes and the timer will count down, etc. And that when the time is up and he apologizes/says sorry we can resume play and move on. I kind of gave him the 411. Well, he "got it" immediately -- for the next day or so when we walked by the corner, by happenstance, he would say "bad boy" LOL. I'm like yes if you don't do the right thing you will go in time out for two minutes. So finally, a few days later I actually had to put him in the calm down corner on the time out mat when he was bad -- and man, he totally got it from word go.

Message edited 9/9/2015 11:19:59 AM.

What is your method for effective time-out?

Thank you so much for that!! I just want to make sure I am doing this right. I am afraid she won't understand but I guess I have to give her more credit than I am.

What is your method for effective time-out?

Pretty much exactly what Dani posted. Dd was a little under 2 when I started so I did one minute sitting on the step between our dining room and kitchen.

Just don't give them any attention beyond putting them on the step and be really consistent. If you do that, hopefully you will rarely have the need for a time out at all! Also the cuddle at the end is great bc it ends the whole negative situation and you can move on in a happy manor.

Re: What is your method for effective time-out?

We've been successful with 1-2-3 Magic. Luckily, at this point, she's behaving with even just the threat of counting because she literally tries to beat us up while in time-out.

Re: What is your method for effective time-out?

I don't know if this is really the best recommended method, a lot of people would say it's a bad idea probably, but I put him in his crib for "time out" though I don't call it that. He doesn't disobey much as far as rules, normally if I tell him to stop doing something, he does stop right away because I use my angry voice & he gets scared. But he's big on throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way. I won't tolerate that. I tell him it's ok to be mad but he can't scream like that or hit us or anything like that because it's not nice... & when he continues carrying on like that, I tell him I'm putting him in his crib with his door closed & not paying attention to him until he calms down. He doesn't like being put in his crib when it's not time to sleep so it's not pleasant for him. (I do this also for us, to separate him from us because I don't like him screaming at the top of his lungs right near his little brother's ears or ours for that matter.) When he calms down & stays that way for a while, I take him out & we continue what we're doing... if he starts screaming/tantruming again, it's back in the crib & no attention until he behaves. His tantrums have definitely improved A LOT over the last couple of months, I have no idea if this has anything to do with it, but I haven't had to do it as much lately. I use the crib because he can't climb out or escape, he's stuck. I guess a high chair facing the wall would work too.