When our daughter, Lily, “graduated” from the baby stage to the toddler stage, my wife and I were over the moon. Gone were the days of bottle feeding, blowouts, endless hours spent trying to get her to sleep and now arrived the days of walking-ish, talking-ish, and solid foods-ish. We knew something was improving for us as our friends and family noted that we “turned a corner” as parents.
Well, the shine of Lily’s newfound semi-independence was a joy but also came with some new “experimentation” as a few veteran parents often delicately assured us.
Lily had been dabbling in what we now understand to be a toddler’s rite of passage for a while, but what started out as a cute coming-of -age exploration habit we often omitted or even adored, desolved into a daily crescendo of splatters, smacks, pings, bangs and booms as she spiked whatever was in her hands off the end of her high chair and onto the walls and floors.
We were forced to do something — anything — and so we started off simple: “No no, don’t do that, Lily,” and other words of the same ilk. This, much to our dismay, did nothing. We persisted in using our words to try and get the message across, but to no avail.
In a few minutes, we went from being rookie gentle parents to drill sergeants without authority as we escalated to a grand fracas in our kitchen while we attempted to reason with our beloved 2 year old at the top of our lungs.
Finally, without thinking, I lifted Lily out of her chair and (gently) placed her in the nearest spot I could find that wasn’t covered in food and started counting.
The shock on her face was clear. It wasn’t a, “what did I do to deserve this” but rather, “What actually is this — Dad this is so weird.”
By the time I counted to seven, I glanced behind me. My wife was doing everything she could to prevent herself from bursting out loud in uncontrollable laughter. In a weird stroke of fortune, her face wore the kind of visceral joy all husbands long to see from their wives.
I tend to be an awkward person by nature and so the count to 30 was brutal. Lily went from wondering what she might’ve done wrong to wondering what was wrong with me. Thankfully, by around 20 seconds, my wife was on board and fully supporting whatever “this” was. For the last 10 seconds, Lily stared at the ground — possibly rethinking everything she thought she knew about her dad.
Once it ended, I gave her a few words about what we just did but she met them with the same uninterested face she gave the floor. Mission accomplished.
I wish I could write this in hindsight and say, “Well, now here’s what I’m doing now and what all parents should do” but I can’t. My wife and I are quite literally piecing together what discipline looks like for our 2 year old and we’re such a mess at it. If there’s anything we’ve learned it’s this: In the least a Time Out gives our whole family a chance to reset, breathe and start again.
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