We May Have a Problem

Because Dakin is like any other child, I treat him as such. And of course, that includes time outs. Our time outs entail ceasing whatever we are doing and taking away all toys for three minutes. We don't put him in the corner-logistically that would be inconvenient and kind of counter productive- so we let him stay wherever he is. When the three minutes are over, we always discuss what happened, with me saying "ok, why were you in time out?" Dakin will answer why, say sorry and we go on with playing or whatever.

We had to do it a a lot a few months ago because he went through a little phase where he was hitting a lot. With consistency in time outs, we no longer have a problem with Dakin hitting. The time out had largely disappeared from our daily activity.

Until the last few days.

You see, Mommy has a problem with saying the word 'stupid', directed at everything in the house that happens to be acting obnoxiously- my phone, the iPad, the people on the television. Now, of course, the obvious exception to this is the people in the house. Only objects or people on the TV who are being stupid get called stupid. I am trying to stop saying it.

But little mynah bird boy has picked up on this and has started saying it. So re-enter the time out. Tonight he took great joy in saying stupid over and over, so of course he got stuck in time out. Thirty seconds into it I hear him say this: "OK, why in time out? Say stupid," obviously going over our post-time out ritual.

So...he is clearly on to my methodology. And while I am glad of that, I don't know how effective the time out was when he could tell I was laughing even though I was hiding my face.

Ah well.