Adventures in Parenting: Time Out!

Norah and I had quite the morning today… she had her first time out.

She has been testing the limits these past couple of weeks or so, and in talking about it with Matt after the fact, we recognize that we haven’t exactly been consistent with setting and communicating the limits. We know that we’re supposed to do this, but two things were at play – first, we weren’t exactly sure that she really got it, that she was old enough to understand. And second, as two full time working parents, sometimes you just don’t have it in you, peppered with a not so subtle amount of guilt for being busy/distracted/dragging her all over the place trying to buy a car.

The time has come on the first item; she clearly knows when she’s being bad. After a disastrous dinner out last night, this morning she INSISTED on sitting on the floor to eat her breakfast. I was kind of rolling with it, not realizing what she was up to at first (hey, I had not had my morning coffee yet!) Once I did figure it out, I put a stop to it. I put her bowl on the table, and sat at the table myself, demonstrating how we eat our meals at our house.
The next 30 minutes were a battle. At one point I went into the bathroom, and she managed to get the bowl of oatmeal off the table and follow me in there, howling the whole way. This was my ah-ha moment. I took the bowl, shooed her back to the kitchen, and when the howling continued, I sat her on a throw rug in the corner. She tried to get up, of course, but I told her in no uncertain terms that (I love her but…) she was to stay there until she was done crying. Amazingly she did. When she was done (about 3 minutes later, though it felt like 40!) she peeked around the corner at me, and I told her to come over – she ran over with a big smile for a hug. We had a bit of a mother-daughter chat at that point, and while that wasn’t the end of it, the second visit to the mat was much less dramatic. Go figure, The Super Nanny, Jo, knows what she’s talking about – I just didn’t realize Norah was there yet. Score one for Mom!

The second point is a lot tougher. Recognizing such things in yourself is hard, but I think it’s a part of life. While we do need to cut her a break when we upset the schedule for whatever reason, there needs to be limits. What they are and how we handle them is going to be an interesting journey for all of us, I’m sure.

On a related note, when I dropped her off this morning, I asked if she was prone to these temper tantrums. Her teacher was surprised and said not only was she not prone to them, it actually took quite a bit to get her upset, like someone grabbing a toy out of her hands (can’t say I blame her, that would tick me off too!) This tells me not only that I’m right about her knowing that she’s being bad, but also that she knows to behave when she’s at daycare – can we take credit for that or it is just luck?