I'm not a spanker. I'm not firmly against a swat on the bottom to get attention when nothing else is working, but how can you expect a child to understand hitting is wrong if you use hitting as discipline. We use time out with Bayleigh. Or I should say we try to use time out. She's a very strong willed child. Very strong willed and if it isn't her will to sit down, you are going to have to sit on her to keep her in the chair.
The terrible twos seem to have waited to attack full on at three. We definitely notice a strong correlation between food and her behavior and are trying to greatly limit artificial coloring, especially brightly colored candies and fruit punch. Fruit punch + Bayleigh = wildfire out of control. Out. Of. Control. And just you try putting her in time out. She had one of these episodes this past weekend. We tried everything to reign her in. Alyssa put her in the tub and it worked for a few minutes, until she decided to sling with both hands water out of the tub and onto the floor. Bath time over. Fit throwing resumes.
We finally got her to settle down by getting her to use my peak flow meter. It was really just a distraction, but taking deep breaths helped her to calm down to a reasonable level and wind down for bedtime.
Boy, that was a wordy bunch jibber-jabber to get to the meat of this post. I had this pinned on pinterest. Yes, again with the pinterest. I'm a junkie folks,. but in a good way. She calls it a mind jar and made hers with glitter glue, water, food coloring and glitter.
I made one for Bayleigh today. I didn't have any glitter glue on hand so I just used some gel tacky glue.
I filled a jar with water. I think this jar holds about 2 cups.
Then I added a few drops of food dye,
about 2/3 of the container of glue,
and several shakes of glitter.
I started out with a large flake glitter, but it sank too quickly.
This very fine Martha Stewart glitter floated slowly to the bottom.
The idea is you give it a good shake and let the child hold the jar while in time out, watching the glitter fall to the bottom is soothing and calming and also a timer of sorts.
I kept adding glue and glitter until it took about 2 minutes for the glitter to settle to the bottom.
Long enough for a screaming banshee to settle back into a sweet toddler. I hope. We shall see.
