Reverse Psychology!

Well, our son has finally beat us at the mind games!

Raleigh has started putting himself in timeout when he is bad. At first, I thought it was wonderful! I didn't have to be the bad guy, and he actually acknowledged he was being naughty. He did this when he was pushing Audrey in the swing too hard (which taught me to ALWAYS put the seatbelt on), and when he was digging through our bathroom drawers. I told him to stop doing those things and he didn't, so I got down on his level, made him look me in the eye and tell me that he would stop doing it (this strangely works with him and he always stops what he was doing). After that, he said he was going to time out. I told him that he didn't need to as long as he would behave, but he insisted that he needed to pay for his crimes. So, I let him do his thing.

Then, I felt really bad and tried to get him out of timeout but he wouldn't leave. So I left and eventually he came around and things returned to normal. Sounds great, right?!

Well, then I started thinking about it, and realized that if he takes timeout away from me, I have NOTHING to threaten him with! So now I don't know how to stop him and I am starting to feel like he runs the house (which he does, but I like to be in denial about it)! What's next?! Is he going to send ME to timeout????