Sunday, September 07, 2008

Timeouts = No more Trucks

When he is naughty he goes to timeout. He has a chair in his room that is his Timeout chair. When he screams, hits Jake or Henry, throws toys he goes to timeout. It didn't seem to be working, going to timeout means attention. We go in there and try to explain why he is in trouble and he gets one on one time with mommy or daddy. We are angry and he is meant to be punished but to him it as time of his own so he would try to go to timeout. We had to change it up a bit and not give him special attention during the timeout but that still wasn't enough. So e decided that toys would be taken away to reinforce the timeout. I explained to Finn about consequences, I kno he doesn't understand completely but you have to start and be consistent so we started. Do something naughty, go to timeout and get one toy taken away, and not just any toy a truck. The first day he lost 4 of his trucks, the next he lost 3. His toy box was getting pretty bare of quality vehicles. When we ran out of trucks we took away his stroller. We got to the point here he had no more trucks or toys of any kind that were uniquely his. Do we take away his books now? On Friday Finn had a good day. It was 3 in the afternoon and no timeouts for the whole day. We told him that if he made it to dinner with no timeouts he could have 5 trucks back. We had been given him trucks back when he did good things like coming when we called him or sharing with Jake but this was an epic day. He made it to after dinner with no timeouts and him and I excitedly went to the garage to the box where confiscated toys live and pulled out his five favorite trucks: The red pickup truck, the mail truck, the green jeep like Aunt Bum's, the cement truck, and the Gator. He also negotiated the release of his stroller and for the next two hours played with these things all ove rthe house. We didn't hear a peep from him until it was time to skype with Grandma and Papa. It really was great to get to reward instead of punish. Saturday was another pretty good day, had a timeout but nothing to bad and this morning I told Finn that if he goes the whole day without a timeout then he can all of his trucks back. The monster trucks, buses, transformers, and the rest. He got really excited thinking about he beloved trucks and ent off playing. I had Henry in my lap watching football at 7:30 in the morning and Finn comes up with his Mail truck and smacks Henry in the head above his right eye. Got him good, like they were in a bar fight. I immediately brought Finn to timeout where he screamed and tried to smack me. I sat him in the chair and he screamed with all his might. Meanwhile Henry was crying like crazy in the living room waking up Kate from her sleep in day. I went and got three trucks to take away and went in and let Finn know that he could no longer play with these anymore. He sat in timeout until he stopped screaming, almost ten minutes. I don't get it, why does he take a truck and nail Henry in the head as part of playing. He might have been jealous but he was getting just as much attention, I just don't get it. It has been a rough morning.

3 comments:

Debbie Rohl said...

It makes me think of what the apostle Paul said, "but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am!" I think we can all relate to the uncontrolable desire to do harm to your sibling, ask my sister.

Mom

Anonymous said...

Mine was all payback.
jamie

Portland Dad said...

After the early nap he was an angel the rest of the day. I guess he needed a reboot. I think it also helped that we had some good family time walking around the mall and having lunch together where we were focused just on Finn. He got all his trucks back at the end of the day, I'm such a pushover