Logan Understands Our Disciplining Method

If there is one area in parenthood where I particularly doubt my abilities, it would be that of discipline. I find disciplining a two year old to be a huge exercise in wisdom, restraint, and finding the perfect balance of letting the child know what they did is unacceptable, but at the same time, not instilling in them a fear of you. These are three things that don’t necessarily mix really when in the heat of the moment.

Our fist line of discipline defense — that I’m sure is shared by many parents — is the time out. We have a special “time out” chair in the middle of the house where Logan finds himself banished after breaking certain rules. We send him to this chair, set a timer, and tell him he can’t get up until he hears the timer beep. After the beep, he has to wait for either Dana or me to walk over to him, make him tell us what he did that was wrong (while looking us in the eye) and apologize. When all is said and done, we thank him for saying he’s sorry, tell him we love him, and give him a big hug.

As I’m sure many other dads do, I’ve been starting to wonder about the effectiveness of this process. Specifically, I was starting to wonder if I wasn’t being hard enough for him to really comprehend, not just the how we do the time out, but the why. My doubts were lifted yesterday.

I was driving with Logan when I heard a most interesting conversation coming from the back seat. Checking the rear view mirror, I observed Logan playing with a Winnie the Pooh book. This book contains a little stuffed Winnie tethered to the spine of the book. Each page is a difference scene in the Pooh Bear’s story and can be acted out with the attached toy; though in Logan’s mind, he was acting out his own storyline. This is what I heard from the backseat:

“No Pooh! Don’t Hit!”

“Time out, 5 minutes!”

“Beep beep, beep beep.” (Yes, he’s actually making the beeping sound of our timer going off)

“Why time out?”

“…”

“You don’t hit”

(at this point he picks up the Winnie the Pooh doll and gives it a hug)

“I love you very very much”

I would like to think that if he has the capacity of recreating his own love/discipline process to his stuffed toys, I’m getting through to him.