What do you guys think? Do you think letting go of a shopping basket is a good or dumb reason to be sent to timeout?
Well, what is the context, consistency, and effectiveness of the discipline strategy in this situation, What happened in this scene was 4 year old Max did not want to go with his family & Jo Frost to buy baby proof items for his baby sister Mia at the defunct Goore’s Baby store where he repeatedly let go of the shopping cart and was scheduled to be sent to timeout for it at home losing the privilege of getting a gumball at the store, when he was told all of this, he became angry & started screaming, screaming, literally screaming that he wants a gumball yelling “I WANT A GUMBALL, GIVE ME A GUMBALL, GIVE ME A GUMBALL NOW” embarrassing his family in front of shoppers, but Jo Frost stops his tantrum and max’s parents manage to send him home without a gumball, when they got home, as scheduled Max was put in timeout for 4 minutes, it did take 13 minutes for him to finally stay in timeout, but he eventually did to his time.
I think it was not necessary for Jo Frost & the mother to put Max in timeout for letting go of the shopping basket because he’s only 4 years old and 4 year olds tend to do things like these, he wasn’t even going anywhere and all he was doing was letting go of a cart, he was not trying to hurt anyone.
Do you know what I would have done if my child continued to let go of a shopping cart, I would have asked my child what the child would want, then I would set a timer for the amount of time we are shopping and I would say “if you hold on to the shopping cart for this amount of time, then you will get what you want, then when the timer ends I would give the child what he wanted before we exit the store, that’s what I would have done in that situation.