I have to say, and this may not be pretty, I have begun to get nervous about my darling boys behavior. He is turning into a bully. And, GOD, no one wants a bully for a kid. This weekend Mason saw his cousin (we'll call him BIG) who is 9 months younger but the same size and beat up on him the whole time. Mason would push him down, slap him with both hands and even put him in a head lock and proceeded to drag him on the wood floor. AWESOME! I can't even count how many timeouts he had. He even got to the point of smacking BIG then putting himself into timeout. Well that is just great. I am firm believer in the philosophy of "not apologizing for your kid/s" I think it sends the wrong message. But, I can't help but worry that this is a reflection of parenting style. What is a lady to do? I don't want to beat the boy(OK,well maybe I do sometimes, BUT I DON'T!) Timeouts are being proved un-effective, and we are very consistent with the way we do them.
*We put him in and a non-distracting place, where he stays for the entire 2 minutes without restraint.
*Once the 2 minutes is up, we go to him, get down to his level, explain what the "no no" was.
*We have him say sorry to whomever he hurt.
*Then give him and hug/kiss and tell him "all done, go play." and we drop it.
So what the hell are we doing wrong? Then, last night we went out to eat at Perkins. When we got there we found out it was kids night. They had movies playing and activities for the kids. Mason wanted to go over there so after he was done eating, Mike took him. And then he came back without the boy. "there is a lady over there who watches them, so she told me I could leave and she'd watch him." We were both skeptical and we didn't think Mason would last long. . .He didn't. Within 5 minute this adult babysitter brings him back to us "He is beating up on the older kids!" I swear, those were her exact words. EMBARRASSING! That is all I can say.
I want to hope that this is just a phase, but it sucks. No one wants to play with a mean kid, so what do I do next? We are really trying to do everything "right" with discipline, but it is not working at all! HELP!