Oh no, I'm the mom in playgroup who doesn't know how to discipline her child!

We had playgroup this morning here at our house. Daniel was doing his usual pulling of the cat's tail -- why the cat doesn't get out of the way, I don't know. When we first got the new cat (the old cats knew to stay within at least a 10 foo radius from him), we tried to teach Daniel to touch her "gently" and "nicely" and we'd show him what we meant by petting his arm. That didn't work. Then, we adopted a "no touch" approach. That didn't work. So then, we switched to just "no" with increasing volume. That seemed to make him just hit the cat harder. Go figure. I've been using redirection too, but being big & preggo, it's hard to get up every.single.time.

So at playgroup today, somebody asked me about using time-out. It turns out that all the other moms have their kids on a time-out regimen. 1 minute for 1 year olds, 2 minutes for 2 year olds, etc. I would've put him in time-out for pulling the cat's tail, they said. Oh. All I know about time out is that we have two nephews who are 3 and 5, and time-out became a joke for them -- I got bit by one of them when he was supposed to be in time out. They are now on to some more elaborate system of giving, taking away and earning point each day.

Anyway, my playgroup moms seem to have had varying success with the time-out method, so I think it's worth a shot. They said that sometimes, they'd just put their kid in time-out because they (the moms) were getting frustrated with the kid. Lord knows, I could use that sometimes. Probably better than yelling which is what I'm prone to do. *smirk* But after this conversation, everytime Daniel did something that he wasn't supposed to which was quite often, I kept thinking, oh no, I'm THAT mom, the one who lets her child run wild. Which isn't really true, but you tend to pick your battles. Awww, the pressure. . . . .