Now I know madness is not a love and logic term, but it still exists in my head sometimes. I should take a minute to introduce myself quickly and then get to the point of this post. I am the mother of two with another on the way. Cooper will be 3 next month (the current love and logic subject), Seneca is almost 4 months old and in 4 months another will join our family.
I fully appreciate the wisdom and principles found in love and logic and if I could always implement them correctly and with consistency I'm sure my household would run quite smoothly every day! While some of what I need help with is embarrassing, I am going to swallow my pride and share and hopefully benefit from all of you.
I am currently in the very middle (hopefully nearing the end) of a beautiful teaching time-out session. Coop is in his room, door locked and has been there for quite some time. He's quiet now, but refuses to let me set the timer. The rule is that the timer must be set for 2 minutes and ding before the door gets opened. He's having a hard time grasping that today. I keep hearing, "I want to come out, no timer." Hmmm... I could simply set it without him knowing, but that's not the point, is it? The poor kid is exhausted and luckily there have been enough household tasks to keep me busy near his room so I can stay nearby. I haven't been very good about that part in the past. It's been easy for me to put him in time out and walk away for a while, but after rereading some of the L&L material, I remembered I need to stay close. My downfall is always trying to talk to much, to reason and to see if I explain things differently if he will finally get it. I'm working on saying less and letting the consequence do the teaching, but good grief! I do have things to do today and on any other day, we would need to be in the car heading somewhere by this time. I'm taking this one as a "wait it out and he'll get it" situation- any feedback is completely welcome! I'll let you know how it turns out!
Update: I waited a bit longer, then went ahead setting the timer, telling him that as soon as it rang he could come out, if he wasn't crying. I let him hear it ring and opened the door, hoping he caught the correlation. While I know talking after a time-out session isn't recommended, we did chat about the timer. He said he doesn't like the timer, which I don't understand because it has never been an issue before. He usually gets to come out of his room and turn it off himself and loves that. I hope the rest of the day goes smoothly, but if not, perhaps we'll get another opportunity to practice! Thoughts on the situation? Really, I'm open to them!!
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I'll think on this one a little...sounds like it turned out okay, I'll be curious what happens next time. I'm going to post my old notes from my Jim Fay conversation maybe those will be of some help. One question that comes to mind is the "Is this working or is the kid working you?" question. It's one that only you'll be able to answer...but it's helped me get thru a few enigma's of my own:)
Trenton has a similar issue. When he gets sent to his room he often screams "no timer, no timer." You would think they would like the timer because then they know the time out is over, but he sees it as a real negative right now.
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