I have a question, I want to see if anybody else has experience this

[conuly]

Several people today online have commented that they do time-outs with their under-5 children, and that the kid had any number of time-outs just this morning, and it "has to work eventually".

I've found that, while time-outs are useful in some circumstances (like when the kiddo has just stolen her sister's doll and pinched her, or when they've deliberately thrown all their food on the floor and refused to help clean it up and called you mean, that sort of thing), it is very, very, *very* easy to go overboard on them.

And once you do that, the behaviour doesn't get better, it just gets worse. The kid gets crankier and crankier and moodier and moodier and more and more high strung, prone to crying at little things. And they do more and more little things - things which, on their own, aren't that bad (and that the kid normally wouldn't do anyway), but which, in this bad day you're having, really start to add up - they say they aren't hungry, then whine that you didn't give them a snack, they stomp their foot and glare at you, they ask for their mom/dad/whoever a lot (and that gets old real fast), they do things as you're telling them not to do them, that sort of thing.

And it can take a whole day to snap the kid out of a morning of this moodiness. A day rapidly turns into two days, or more - especially if, unlike me, you have to deal with a sleepless kid.

I have found other ways of stopping minor misbehaviour (not major stuff, which is in a different category), and it doesn't solely consist of playing with them until they cheer themselves up (would that I could to that all the time, but I don't know that their parents would approve, nor that it'd always work)... but what I want to know is if anybody else has seen this happen when time-outs get used too much.

Comments

[conuly]

Angelique and Evangeline are my nieces, so you hear about them a lot. I watch them during the week, for the low low price of... well, not enough. But it's family, so what can you do?

Sometimes I'll watch another girl, Su, as a favor for her family, but I haven't done that regularly since September, since she's in preschool now. I occasionally have done babysitting during the day for other kids I know, but as favors.

I also see a number of other children during the day, and have all sorts of butting in commentary on them, but I don't watch them, their adults are with them.

[conuly]

See meaning "say hi to" not "in some sort of professional capacity", of course.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Okay, that was more or less what I thought. Are Angelique and Evangeline sisters, or cousins?

[conuly]

Sisters. They're my sister's kids. We all live in the same house - they're upstairs, my mom, Elise, and I are downstairs (Elise is... Elise), and 'dul and Asa have the first floor apartment.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Wait, now I'm confused. I thought 'dul was the niecelings' dad? And was with (in a fairly permanent way) the niecelings' mom? Did I miss something? If so, pardon the buttinskyness.

[conuly]

They're together. They just have separate apartments, but that doesn't stop them from sleeping together, or sleeping together.

Okay, to be honest, I don't understand their relationship, but as long as it works for them, I don't much care, either.

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

Details of our relationship aside, the living arrangement can best be descirbed as: he lives with us, but has his own space downstairs as well. It functions as his studio and the equivalent of a den, and also our workout room is on that floor. Really Connie, it's not that different than any family with a 2- or 3-story home and a room that is "dad's" or "mom's" craft/den/computer/etc. room. :-)

[noodles-morgyn.livejournal.com]

Hang on, what about Ana?

[noodles-morgyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait. Ana = Angelique?

[conuly]

Yes. I'm trying to call her by her real name.