Time out

I'm not sure how to describe Colin's temperament...maybe calmly destructive with spontaneous bursts of anger?  A friend at church said one of her boys was very similar to Colin and she would put him in a pack in play for time out.  He is a people person, so I thought time out might be a good punishment for him.  So I set it up one afternoon, ready to put discipline into action.

However, I soon realized that maybe more than discipline, Colin just needs periods of containment.  Wouldn't it be great if he would just watch TV for 10 minutes?  He won't even look at the screen and would rather be in the kitchen pulling everything out of the cabinets.

I turned on Winnie the Pooh, dumped some toys in the pack in play and moved it so he couldn't see me.  Worked like a charm :)  Although Alison and Eliot were more excited about the movie, Colin was content to play right there for a little bit.

I have had to use it for time out a couple of times and just took the toys out and we all left the room.  Definitely a punishment for him and he did not like it.

Don't feel too bad for him though, he definitely needed something.  You see, this week he threw a car in Eliot's face and it chipped his front tooth.  Poor kid was just sitting watching the Olympics and was spontaneously ambushed.

Here's proof that Colin can't stay out of the kitchen:

We lost a sweet lady in our church last week.  She battled cancer for 10 years and her 2 daughters often babysit our kids.  I was cooking food to take to the family and the funeral reception and Colin couldn't be left out.  He got out the step stool and the utensils and found a cookie out of Alison's Valentine's stash and helped me cook.  I'm looking forward to the day he really can help me cook, I have a feeling he has Ben's cooking genes.