Time Out

A couple weeks ago I was at a friend's house for a mommy's night out. Beth's daughter, Lily, is about 18 months old. Lily was acting up and she put her into time out. She actually stayed there for about 2 minutes. I was totally amazed! I didn't know when to start doing time-outs with Zamara (or as the Supernanny would say, sitting on the naughty spot). Beth started doing time-out with her several months ago. Craig and I figured that now was probably the right time to start working on it.

Zamara has been starting to exert her independence lately. Her big thing is walking in the wrong direction as us on purpose and hitting. She does both of those things to get us angry at her and to be defiant.

A few days ago Zamara kept hitting me and wouldn't stop. It wasn't hard, but I had said "no!" several times. I told her that the next time she hit me she would go to time out. She looked me right in the eye and then hit me. So we put her in time out for the first time. We sat her down right by the couch. I had no confidence that she would actually sit there, but she did! She burst into tears and threw quite a little fit on the floor, but she sat there for well over 30 seconds--which is a pretty long time for a 13 month old. It was so cute (and kinda funny) to watch her sitting there wailing her heart out when we were just a few steps away. Total crocodile tears, of course! Then we got her up and asked her to say sorry (which she can't really say yet), gave her hugs and kisses, and told her why she was put into time out. She was in a bad mood for the rest of the night, though. We have not had to really discipline her that much, so I don't think she knew how do deal with it.

We had to do time out again while we were in Phoenix because she kept hitting me again. It worked just as well and she bounced back much quicker. It's been really hard to do but we feel it is the right time to get things started on the "discipline front". That first time was especially rough! Please keep our little family in your prayers that we would make wise, godly decisions that will bring Zamara up to be a girl who loves God with all of her heart, soul, mind and strength and loves her neighbor as herself.