Timeouts did not work for our oldest. He would constantly try to sneak or wrestle out of timeout and it turned into a game for him. We tried to stick with it but looking back I think it was a huge mistake and the contributed to behavioral problems he has today, basically full blown ODD.

If it seems like something is not working for you, don't try to force it.

If in doubt, love over punishment. Don't lose your temper.

This is where we're at too, the timeouts just don't work -- same behavior -- running out of his room etc. What I've found is to give him a little of something he wants (5 minutes of legos) before I need something (getting dressed for school). That way I'm not trying to force something "right away" and thus avoiding a confrontation in the first place. Once the power struggle begins, there's not really a smooth way out of it.

They will start getting experience with arbitrary, petty, random and chaotic behavior as soon as you start sending them to public school.

That is exactly right. I remember the kid who showed up to public high school after being homeschooled for K-8 seeming completely bewildered by typical patterns of teenage behavior. Thank god his parents did not decide to go all the way to grade 12.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. A thinly veiled insult perhaps?

That's not how I read it... Going to school means interacting with dozens/hundreds of other people (many of them peers who are still developing social interaction skills). Encountering those behaviors is inevitable in that setting.

That's about what I was getting at. You also get authority figures that are inconsistent and tyrannical, the wonders of bureaucracy, and extreme limitations of personal liberty. You get to learn how to deal with stupid and illogical people, bullies, and all the other elements of the vast canvas of personality types.

It's great training, and not to be discounted. But having a haven of stability in the home is an essential counterbalance.

I came here to write basically this. I know some parents who use the attitude of "the world is a rough place, so kids need to learn how to deal with it" as a justification for dealing more harshly with their kids than I would (kind of like valuing a "school of hard knocks" approach).

Based on my own childhood, I both totally agree with the premise and come to a fairly opposite conclusion: home must be a haven since it is the only place that has any reasonable chance of being a haven. School almost certainly won't be; other kids can be real assholes sometimes.

But why do you stress the "public" bit?

It's what I know about. Also, public schools have to take everybody, so you are more likely to have to encounter people across the spectrum of abilities.

I've seen a lot of people that went to private schools really not understand just how stupid can be nor how such people think, because their world was chopped off at something like a 105 IQ floor.

No one at school knows them or cares about them, like in the real world where most people are utterly indifferent. Just as your boss or your therapist does not really care about you neither does your teacher. Some friends do, eventually, but you aren’t friends with someone instantly. They don’t know or care about you at the beginning either.

It could be interpreted that way, but it also holds a certain amount of truth.

> So as our kids have gotten older we will have them owe us a time out for when they’re more calm and can actually get something from it.

Some would argue that any delayed punishment is less likely to be understood (and so more likely to foster resentment) than one that's carried out immediately.

I have a three year old and I don’t think of what I do as punishment at all. I don’t think they have the kind of agency and self consciousness to understand that what they’re doing is wrong, so it doesn’t make sense to think of things that way for me.

What I do have is near complete control of their environment so I use that to enforce limits. They can’t engage in some behavior I don’t like if they’re not in a position where they can do it. If they won’t stop messing with the remote, I hide it or move them to another room. If he won’t share toys with his brother, I put the toys away, if he’s acting out in a tantrum, I remove him from the room.

There’s no point being angry at what a toddler does, they literally can’t control themselves sometimes.

Most three years olds certainly will understand what they are doing is wrong if you tell them and why. But you are right in that they don’t know how to control their feelings and sometimes themselves. But that is true of many adults too.

I am not sure that's the case. Children are very good at putting things into categories. If you give them a list of things that are right and things that are wrong, they will certainly remember it in the same way that they memorize the names of the trains on Thomas, but I'm not sure that the category "right" and "wrong" has any particular meaning to them. It takes quite a while for them to develop what is a rather sophisticated concept that many adults struggle with.

In any case, even if they are aware that something is 'right' or 'wrong', I don't think that doing something that we've defined as wrong for them deserves 'punishment' in the way that you would punish an adult who has a fuller understanding of actions and consequences.

I don't punish. Children can certainly learn what makes other people sad or angry, and have a sense of fairness. I don't think there are any metaphysical aspects of right and wrong that kids have to learn.

> Although one parent is more consistent about applying them than the other.

I suspect the "good cop/bad cop" parenting thing is inevitable in most relationships (it's certainly the default for me and my wife). It's something we try to be very aware of and intentional about (I think it can be pretty destructive if allowed to go unchecked).

> One thing we’ve learned is that time out with an angry child is not especially effective. So as our kids have gotten older we will have them owe us a time out for when they’re more calm and can actually get something from it.

Our view is that the timeout is most effective when a kid is angry (or in any out of control emotional state). The timeout provides a time and space to get emotions under control, then we can have a conversation with cooler heads about expectations and consequences.

My spouse & I try to be explicit with each other about who is good cop and who is bad cop, and switch off. Good cop/bad cop can really be destructive as you say when it's done carelessly or if it pits the parents against each other. We try to use it gently to maintain a united front. For instance, with bedtime on a rough night, we pick which parent will cajole & start things off and which parent will take over if things go south. One's the closer, and if bedtime goes well that parent can actually just sit it out. For us that helps us have more patience, as if tempers get high, parent 1 simply switches out with parent 2, and sometimes that resets the kid's attitude too.

We haven't figured out timeouts at all.

> There is one downside to raising children in a consistent, predictable, and logical environment. That is; they’re less prepared to deal with chaotic people and situations as adults.

Do things differently in the weekend.

>Do things differently in the weekend.

<music>Jose Cuervo you are a friend of mine...</music>

If your child is too angry or upset for timeout do you just wait until they calm down and apply punishment? What about tantrums in public or somewhere where timeout can’t exactly work?

Expecting parent. Can’t wait for September when my daughter is due!

It depends on age, they have to be able to understand what’s happening. So for toddlers we’d redirect to something else, then timeouts, then around 5 is when we started delaying them. Seems to work really well. But you’re right, in public is different. Usually taking them out of the situation worked for us. Like tantrum at a restaurant, take them outside till they cool off.

>> What about tantrums in public

> Like tantrum at a restaurant, take them outside till they cool off.

Our youngest had a gold-plated tantrum (with screaming turned up to 11) on a flight with me last summer, triggered by me insisting that she fasten her lap belt.

Short of carrying a tranquiliser gun (joke!) I'm not sure what one can do with an over-tired, over-excited 2 year-old in these situations, apart from try not to get into them in the first place.

When we flew cross country with our baby, a mom and two older kids across the aisle insisted that we give her our baby to hold and at that point we were so frazzled from the screaming and fussing that we acquiesced and they had the baby laughing and cooing the rest of the flight. If I’m being honest I was a little bit hurt.

Babies generally respond well to new and varied stimuli. That sounds like a great recipe for a happy baby. Parents still close enough to feel safe, but new people and behaviors to experience. I've also found babies generally love kids...

I am lucky enough to enable my wife to stay home with our daughter as she grows up and the results have been spectacular (you aren't a bad parent for not doing this, I just was in a position to do so). As an infant she was never ignored or left to get over heated (with the exception of a few times she stayed at grandma's house and her behavior for the next few days changed dramatically) as a result she does not feel the need to scream loudly or throw tantrums as she grows older. Anecdotes are anecdotes of course but we will be doing the same thing for kid two.

Kids are different. My kids also generally doesn't have tantrums, and I don't stay home. She's just a mellow kid (and also was never ignored or left to get over-heated -- what are you implying here?). Compare to a friend of mine whose oldest can turn into a nuclear meltdown in 5 seconds; she stays home.

Hope your kid 2 doesn't destroy all your certainties about children :)

>and also was never ignored or left to get over-heated -- what are you implying here?

I just mean that daycare services (at least the ones I've seen) are not staffed 1:1 so the average wait time for children who say need a diaper change is probably higher than a stay a home parent with a single child.

Our kid did not go to daycare until 16 months, so I don't know much about that, but also did not have a single stay-at-home parent. Both parents dropped days/week worked to 3 or 4 and we staggered our schedules, and then had a caretaker about 18 hrs/week. I think this should be brought up for people in jobs like software where flexibility is sometimes possible.

I was a hands on stay at home parent. Kid still had a few tantrums. Every kid is different, you’ll probably observe that when your next arrives.

> If your child is too angry or upset for timeout

"Timeout" doesn't mean "being along" (it may, and that may be helpful for some kids, but it's definitely not for all of them). I have spent many timeout sessions sitting on the bottom step alongside one of my kids while they're losing it next to me (or on my lap, or wrapped in a bear-hug). Eventually (in my case) they calm down, and we'll generally have a bit of a conversation, and then I'll generally leave them alone for a minute or two (mostly to give them a chance to process our conversation and "reset" the situation).