How to effectively handle a child who ignores timeouts and walks away?

Question

I have a two and a half year old daughter who has been acting up lately. She often ignores timeouts by getting up and walking away, even when I try to enforce them by picking her up and putting her back in place. This behavior is not consistent, but it does happen occasionally. What can I do to address this issue effectively?

Answer 1

Put the child back in timeout and reset the time. Without exception. Like most other parenting duties this is all about consistency.

Ignore laughing or other such - the child is trying that behavior out to elicit a reaction from you. Stay calm and firm. Don't interact beyond enforcement (that downtime's the point of the time-out, and they may be trying to pass the time in a more entertaining manner with you!).

At that age, timeouts don't work unsupervised, you have to be right there. It can be a hassle, but that's parenting.

Answer 2

Remember that Time-Out is not a Punishment. if you believe that then make sure your behavior during/after time-out is also giving same impression to your child.

As you said if she is not doing every time, that means she knows that you have given her time out and in certain occasions she feels it is not valid. may be she has seen you doing the similar thing in house. By taking some time-out yourself check that you are giving her time-out for right reasons.

w/o some examples when she takes her time-out seriously and when not I can say following;

If you feels that she is enjoying making fun of time-out try to calm down yourself first and find patterns in occasions when she does it and that may give hint. this will take time.

Meanwhile change rule a bit. Do the time out together. during time-out do some activity she likes to gather and see if that changes her behavior.