Toddler Discipline

A couple of months ago I shared some of the troubles I was having with Jonas, my two year old son. He was beginning to test more boundaries and I was beginning to realize we needed to be more serious about discipline. You can read the full post here.

Without patting myself on the back too much, I feel pretty good about the place we find ourselves in now. He's still testing boundaries (Duh! He's a two year old!), but we're still responding with consistent discipline and he's responding positively. Phew!

Our primary means of discipline is still the time out. When we first started using it we called it "quiet time" and we sat with him. We sat with him until he calmed down, then we would count with him. Right now I count to 30 seconds. I suppose the amount of time is less important that the alteration of behavior and since he seems fairly capable of quickly alterating his behavior to something more appropriate, 30 seconds is where we'll stay.

Just this weekend I decided it was time for him to start sitting in a bonafide time out by himself. The first time I tried he got up a couple of times before he got that I was going to make him sit there and I expected that. But, what I didn't expect was him getting the concept so quickly. It only took me 3 tries to get him to sit down and wait until time was up. Every time out since, he's waited till his time was up to get up! Phew, again!

I'm not entirely sure of what connections he is making when we put him in time out. All I can see is his response to it, and I'm pleased with it. His response is to calm down and when the time out is done move on to something else. Of course, this is not his response 100% of the time. I would be a big liar if I tried to pass that one off. There are times when he finishes his time out and immediately returns to the behavior that landed him there in the first place. If that happens, it's right back to time out. I've had to put him time out 3 or more times on occasion until he finally realized that I was not going to tolerate the behavior.

Right now I am relieved at the progress we have made. My child is by no means perfect, but we've been able to implement a discipline routine that works well for us. I want to end this post by encouraging you in your discipline. Just keep at it, it will work eventually. Kids thrive on consistency when it comes to discipline and I can see that clearly in our own efforts with Jonas.