Toddlers: 24 Months+

Time out / discipline ideas?

I've been trying to give my 2 3/4 year old time outs as discipline.  Lately he has not been listening to us, especially when told not to do something.  He whines and whines, or worse, throws a major tantrum.  When I put him in time out (in a chair in the corner of the dining room), I tell him he needs to sit there in silence for 2 mins (I show him on the clock how long 2 min is; and I tell him I'll tell him when his time out is done).  He'll stay in the chair, but pretty much the whole time he asks over and over again "I get down now?".  I feel like he doesn't get the point of time out, and that by him talking the whole time that the time out isn't what it should be.  What do you think?  Any suggestions?
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Re: Time out / discipline ideas?

  • get a digital kitchen timer and tell him he can get up when the timer says beep beep.

    consider yourself lucky tho- neither of my kids will stay in TO and I spend the whole time picking them up & putting them back, usually while they're crying/screaming. :)

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  • At this age toddlers don't understand the true meaning of a timeout.  They are not yet able to sit and reflect on their actions.  DH and I chose not to do TOs and instead have "cool downs."  For the most part if DD isn't having a tantrum/meltdown due to hunger, tiredness or general crankiness where we can alleviate it with food, sleep, etc than we have a cool down.  We usually don't enforce this unless she's not listening to us.  We'll start by asking her to stop the behavior she's currently doing.  If she doesn't listen than we get down to her level, I'll usually hold her hand to get her to look at me, and I'll ask her to stop.  For example, "Please keep your hands off your brother.  You're hurting him." If she doesn't listen after that than we count to 3.  Usually that does the trick.  Sometimes starting the countdown makes her ballistic and that's when we tell her she's too upset and needs to go cool down.  She knows to go to a corner and wait it out until she's calmed down.  DH even taught her how to take deep breaths.  There isn't a set time, she knows she can interact with us when she's calm.  She'll usually yell out or run over to us saying she's "cooled down" and we cheer and give her a hug.  After that we repeat what had happened earlier and try to give her an alternative on how to deal with that situation.  We've been doing this for the past year or so and it has worked for us.
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  • Check out the book 1-2-3 Magic. Putting DD on a chair in the corner never worked for us. Her two minute timeout turned into 20 minutes and all of us frustrated. Now we follow 1-2-3 Magic. If she gets to 3 she has to go to her room for 2 minutes to cool down. Most of the time when we go to get her she apologizes right away. We don't harp on what she did and we move on. Normally after those 2 minutes she has forgotten what she was doing anyway.

    Now if she hits us in anger that is an automatic 3 and she goes to her room.

    Worth a try.


  • We're more Super Nanny on time-outs.  We give a warning or two, and if the behavior continues, we place the child in time out and explain why.  ("Andrew, you're in time out for hitting Kevin.")  There is no restriction on crying/whining/etc., they just have to stay put.  We do not talk to or respond to them during TO at all, totally ignore them except to put them back if they move.   If they get up, we silently place them back in time out.  When we're done (2 mins of sitting as the boys are 2) we explain why they were in time out and make them say they're sorry and give a big hug.  If they don't say sorry they have to do another time out.

    We have been using this method since the boys were 18 months and it's awesome.  Initially, they tested us - there was a lot of them getting up and trying to leave time out.  We were very consistent to the point it was maddening, but we won.  They don't really ever get up from time out anymore.

    I do believe kids of 2+ "get it" and it works, you just have to hang in there.  GL!

  • I very much agree with the above poster...we pretty much do this.  For a while, DS was getting out of time out until I made the next consequence was go to his room which he HATES.  Now he will sit there.  He is 26 months and knows sometimes he can avoid timeout by saying "sorry for x" then giving a hug/kiss as well.  We use an egg timer and I do not speak to him while in time out. 
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  • imagejenkm:

    We're more Super Nanny on time-outs.  We give a warning or two, and if the behavior continues, we place the child in time out and explain why.  ("Andrew, you're in time out for hitting Kevin.")  There is no restriction on crying/whining/etc., they just have to stay put.  We do not talk to or respond to them during TO at all, totally ignore them except to put them back if they move.   If they get up, we silently place them back in time out.  When we're done (2 mins of sitting as the boys are 2) we explain why they were in time out and make them say they're sorry and give a big hug.  If they don't say sorry they have to do another time out.

    We have been using this method since the boys were 18 months and it's awesome.  Initially, they tested us - there was a lot of them getting up and trying to leave time out.  We were very consistent to the point it was maddening, but we won.  They don't really ever get up from time out anymore.

    I do believe kids of 2+ "get it" and it works, you just have to hang in there.  GL!

    This is what we do with our 2 year old.  After the "I'm sorry" and a hug, we try to get her interested in another activity.  This usually prevents her from repeating the initial problem behavior.   

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