my son is 4yrs old, and am trying to discipline him but with no results. he is very naughty and basically never listens to me and is very naughty at nursary school too. i don’t know what to do. i also have a baby that is 4 months, so i thought maybe that’s also at fault, he’s not jealous and he’s very good with the baby but i’m wondering if his behaviour is worse nowadays because of the baby, i give him, my older child, a lot of attention, so i don’t know. i also punish him when he’s naughty but he’s not scared of anything. any help would be useful thank you.

We were just about to abandon timeouts for discipline for our 2 ½ year old son. Our pediatrician just gave us some good advice about timeouts that makes sense to me. First, instead of just putting the child in a corner, she suggests an actual timeout chair.

She suggests no long speeches about “no hitting” (or whatever) and not reminding the child why they are in timeout (don’t say “You’re in timeout because you hit Mommy”, etc). The idea is that they experience a complete lack of attention while they are there. If they try to get up, you just wordlessly put them back. Lastly, you don’t say anything to the child about the “crime” once the timeout is complete – just let them out and go back to business as usual. All the normal speeches we would make "Mommy doesn’t like to get hit, you got a time out because you hit, blah, blah, blah" are just another kind of attention and are less effective.

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