discipline

time out is an invaluable tool, imo. from when our oldest was relatively young -- 2, i guess -- we instituted it, and he understood it pretty quickly. if we said 'go sit down,' he had a designated corner he went and sat in. these days i just tell him to go to bed. usually a few minutes in his bedroom is all he needs to calm down. sometimes he'll stay there for 20 minutes, which is fine with me too. the hard ones are the tantrums in public. sometimes there's no real option except to scoop them up and get out of wherever you are. the 4-yr-old had a total meltdown on the playground the other day, so we just packed up and left and went for a walk. we found a fountain and he ended up sitting next to it for about a half-hour, just watching the water.

a lot of this i take from what i remember about being a temperamental kid. i used to have huge, crying tantrums. what i eventually found worked best was just getting out of whatever setting i was in, whether that meant going to a different room or going outside or whatever. time out follows that same principle, separating the child from the immediate situation that is creating the problem. definitely just yelling doesn't accomplish much of anything, although i won't pretend that that doesn't happen. i never feel good about it, but sometimes it's just there and i do it and vent what i need to vent and then go back to being as calm as possible.

the key thing i think is to think about it less as "discipline" -- which sounds so fascist -- than as civilizing. it's about teaching them how to deal with all the frustrations of life, all the times you don't get what you want or have to wait for it or the thing you thought you want turns out to be disappointing or you want the thing someone else has or etc etc etc. stuff that most grown-ups struggle with too. but everyone needs to know what the boundaries are, what kinds of expression of frustration or desire or disappointment or anger are acceptable and what kinds aren't.

Elisabeth approached two kids in creche and pulled out some of their hair. She does this with Ophelia. Or rather attempts to but I try to stop her. It's very hard though. I usually am very strict but she continues to attempt the hairpulling. In the creche they put her in the bathroom. Timeout indeed. :-)