How you discipline your child is a very personal thing. There are parents that spank their children when they have a naughty moment, a small number of parents that subscribe to the “hot saucing” of children as punishment and other parents use the “time out” method where the child sits down and has some time out of doing anything for a little while and usually the parent talks to the child about why they are in time out and why it’s not okay to pull the cat’s tail, snatch a toy away from a playmate or get up and run around the table at dinner. Reinforcing good behavior and taking your child immediately out of situations where he can misbehave is a great way to quell the unwanted behavior without raising your own blood pressure in the process.
Toddlers especially don’t have a lot of self control, the temptation to touch, pull and grab is just too great sometimes and you may feel as though your child’s name is actually “No” because you have to tell him or her not to touch, not to run or not to do other things that could get your child hurt.
Even one whole minute of sitting in a time out chair can seem like an eternity for a young child full of energy. You can help your child learn even during those time out times by using a helper like the Time’s Up Time Out Frog. He’s a plush froggie with a timer on the front and your child can see time as it’s ticking by. Your child will quickly learn what 3 minutes looks like on the clock and you can set the time for up to 60 minutes. In addition to the inevitable time out times, you can also use this frog and set the timer so you child can see how many toys he can put away in one minute or if you have a group of kids arguing over one toy, set the timer so each child gets a turn until the timer goes off and then they pass it to the next child and the timer is reset.
And those are just a few ways you can utilize a timer to help your children understand length of time and recognize time as more than just numbers on the clock.
