Great Balls of Cotton

Very annoyingly, the threat and execution of time-outs have stopped having an effect on our little misbehaver. Well, that's not entirely true. They briefly stop her from her negative behavior for the duration of her time-out -- as she plays with the toys in her room or makes funny faces/sings at the wall corner she's staring at. But emotionally, she appears unfazed. Sometimes even amused. And then once the time-out is over, she occasionally continues doing what got her into trouble to begin with.

New plan of attack. Sheri (the nanny) shared with me the idea of having a jar that you fill with cotton balls (or whatever) when they do nice things/take away when misbehaving. And then once they reach x number of balls in the jar, they get a reward. I figured I'd give it a try since I have nothing to lose, but I had my doubts as to whether she'd care in the least. Or if she was even old enough to get the concept.

Turns out it was a brilliant idea and has been amazingly effective for the last 2 weeks. Seriously. Like magic. And we don't know if she really "got" that there was a reward for reaching 10 balls in the jar. It mainly seemed about putting them in the jar, seeing them, and making sure none of the precious balls were ever taken away.

Just one quick threat of taking away a cotton ball sends her into near tears and she shapes up immediately. So much so that she had a nightmare the other morning; she woke up at 5 or so crying. When I went into her room to see what was wrong, she wailed, "I want my cotton ball!!!" --which she always says when she loses one. Hehe. No monsters under the bed or dreams about kids being mean. Her biggest fear is losing cotton balls.

On a happy note, she finally reached 10 balls this afternoon because she put away the books that were scattered on her bedroom floor. She chose to go to the community center play space for her "special treat". She seemed pretty excited when we got home about starting over with 1 cotton ball.

I'm really going to enjoy this while I can because I don't know how long it's going to work. It sure is cute for now, though. Kids' minds are funny.