Somebody asked me about alternative methods to time-outs.

[conuly]

And I started this whole comment, and then decided to rewrite and make it a post.

That post isn't going too well, because my thoughts are all in a jumble, and I'm talking about 20 things at once.

So I'll post tomorrow or so, but right now leave you with one thought - prevention is always better than cure. Even if it looks that way, your kid's behaviour doesn't appear out of the ether. It always comes from somewhere, and the best alternative to a time-out is to help your kid behave well in the first place so a time-out isn't even necessary.

This can be a lot harder than it seems the way I said it, so I now need to do a two or three part post - ways to help your kid behave, ways to help a kid calm down or refocus once they've misbehaved already, and ways to help your sanity either way.