The time-out is a classic system for ensuring good behavior. Every mom has her own system for getting her kids to behave. Usually, we’re looking at a mixture of bribery, discipline and good old-fashioned brought-up-ness.
As a method of discipline, it’s ideal: it helps reinforce that bad behavior is bad in a firm but gentle way.
Like the punishment one mom gave out to her misbehaving teen, a time-out clearly communicates tough love, especially for someone little who might act out but not understand why they’re in trouble.
Genius mom Christine Peterson, who blogs over at Christiney’s Crafts, came up with the perfect way to dole out time-outs in a way that’s firm and fair. She built an awesome three-legged stool that’s just the right size for an itty-bitty misbehaving person.
Plus, it comes with a built-in timer so that your kid knows that, nope, time’s not up yet.
Scroll through to check out the this awesome project!
Talented mom Christine Peterson spotted a time-out stool online and thought it would be the perfect way to admonish her kiddos when they're misbehaving.
To start the project, she just bought all the fixings for a simple three-legged stool at the hardware store.
She needed three simple chair legs, sawed down to the height of a kiddo, and two round pieces of wood for the seat and the base of the stool.
First, she sanded down the wood, making sure all of her piece would fit together.
She then laid out all of her wooden materials on a tarp in the backyard and got started on bringing her piece to life.
She sprayed it all down with a few coats of bright-blue spray paint to give the time-out stool some snazzy color.
Her next step was making the "hourglass" portion of the stool!
Clever Christine made her hourglass by slicing the top halves off two ordinary two-liter soda bottles.
She made a shallow indentation in the the base and in the seat that were just the right size to fit the round part of the bottle.
She assembled the seat, base, and legs into a cute little stool, then fixed the first half of the bottle in place with the spout side up.
Next, Christine used a funnel to fill it up about half of the way.
Instead of using sand, she designed her hourglass to count down with salt, because the clean white contrasts so nicely with the blue.
Next, Christine fixed the second pop bottle half in place under the top of the stool.
She designed it so the mouths of the bottles nearly meet up in the middle.
Then, she fitted each bottle with washers and joined them together with a wooden ball drilled to just the right size.
Here's what the stool looked like with all the pieces were in place!
She ended it all with a coat of polyurethane finish to give it a nice shine.
It's almost too cute to be a punishment!
And here it is being put into use! Though we have to admit that this little munchkin looks like he is awfully happy about his time-out right now!
Do you love this cute and simple way of making sure time-outs are always right on schedule? Make sure to SHARE for all the parents and grandparents out there!
