You may remember my earlier story about time outs. Despite that, they are a very effective method of punishment. C hates them – which is good. Even better, he understands them. He’s so accustomed to them now that sometimes when he’s caught being bad, he’ll look up and say "I go to time out. Need to think about it."

A few months back, I walked into find C playing with an empty train. This was a bit surprising, as the train is designed to have little plastic people inside it that ride along. Normally, C plays by putting them in the train, moving the train around, and then taking them out. He makes them get in and out at the station, yell as they go through the tunnel, and generally have a good time.

This time, however, that was not the case. I looked around the room and found all the little people lined up facing one of the walls. C was playing with the train on the other side of the room.

I just had to ask him what was going on.

"They’re in time out," he said. "They need to think about it."

Why, I asked, and he replied "They kept falling down. ‘No Falling Down!’ I said, but they kept falling down. They’re in time out. They need to think about it."

Indeed they did, I said, and left the room.