Time out and being scared

notreallyirish · July 2014

DS1 is a real handful lately. Whining nonstop, defiant, a real peach. Putting him in a chair or anywhere he can get out of does not work well for time out because he just bitches the whole time and gets up constantly leading to an even worse shit show than whatever he did to begin with. Short of sitting on him or strapping him into a car seat or something, putting him in his room with a child lock on the doorknob for a few minutes is the only way to keep him contained and give myself some breathing room.

The problem is that lately he always freaks out. It's dark! There's a weird light on the wall! There's a scary noise! There's a bad guy! Today he just shrieked I'm scared! I'm scared! I know he wants to get out of being punished but he is also just at that age of being afraid of the unknown and is genuinely scared. He freaks about being alone other times too. I don't know how to discipline him and give myself a break from him without him being terrified. Advice?

User123456 · July 2014

Are you putting him in timeout in a dark room?

zbeesma86 · July 2014

Do you have steps? I put Z on the last step for time out & she sits until I say she can get up.

Out in the open. Can't be scared. Z has tried to do that to me too.

notreallyirish · July 2014

User123456 said:
Are you putting him in timeout in a dark room?

No! It's daytime and the lights are on. That's part if what drives me insane.

littlemermaid · July 2014

If you want to go back to using a spot in the house as his time-out you could use the Supernanny approach. You put them in the time-out spot and if he doesn't stay there the whole time then you march him right back to the spot and do not say a word to him and the clock starts over. 5 minutes if he's 5 years old. Each time he gets up before his time is up just march him right back silently and restart clock. Explain to him the first time that the clock will restart everytime he gets up. The first time you use this approach it will be a struggle and may take a while because he knows you eventually give in to his tantrums of whining then he will test you to the limit.

If you want to keep him in his room I would just ignore his tantrums. Maybe put some ear buds in to drown out the noise for 5 minutes. I personally would not use his room as a time-out. It's best to keep him in the open where you can keep an eye on him to make sure he's fulfilling his time-out.