Time Out Variation -- Day 979

Today I was eating with Anna and she decided to play with her food in a potentially very messy way, so I asked her nicely to stop. She didn't. I asked again; she didn't again. And so it went on as you can probably imagine.

When she finally stopped I asked her why she didn't listen to Daddy after I had asked her nicely to stop. Anna then says, "Because Nya-Nya doesn't listen to Daddy." Of course, she is also a toddler, but I thought I would take this idea and run with it a bit.

At that point I said, "Well, then the Nya-Nyas are going to have to have a time out for not listening to Daddy." I marched upstairs, grabbed the mangy duo, put them on the couch, and set the timer for two minutes. You should have seen how much crying Anna did; she howled the whole time. And when it was all done, she went over to the couch, comforted them and gave them a white bowl with some granola.

I'll see how this type of punishment works out. It seems to have some promise.

By the way, Anna has named her Nya-Nyas. One is now called Emily and the other one is Chloe, and just a minute ago, Emily apparently spilled the bowl of granola all over the couch. When I vacuumed it up, Anna made sure to hold Emily on the handle of the handy-vac to 'help out'. It seems the time out is making Emily more responsive.