Its Time Out Time

So my little angel is growing up, so fast that my head spins thinking about it... and I have always sworn to be a responsible parent, a parent who cares about the long term well-being of her child... a parent who knows that sometimes short term toughness is necessary for longer term happiness... a parent who considers the needs of others and knows that a well behaved socially adept child is more likely to be successful and popular.  I therefore am a big fan of consistent boundaries.  Thus far I have not been overly firm with the little angel, I figured that a lot of the time she really was too little to understand that she was doing wrong, or how to behave appropriately in particular circumstances...
Now however, I observe her little mind ticking over, I see her little eyes calculating different people's reactions, I see her testing behaviours as she thinks "what will mummy do if I do this?" and I know that it is time.  The time has come for consequences.  Waahaahaaa.... :-)  We started with some little behavioural learning tasks to see how she went, and yes, she has proven that she can learn with praise and reward.  She now knows that she needs to pack away her bath toys before she gets wrapped up tight in mummy's warm towelled arms... She now knows how to pick up the tupperware and put it back in the drawer and close the drawer when asked... She knows that if mummy leaves the pantry door open then she should shut the door, not pull all the jars out. 
All this is wonderful and we are making great progress with adding new appropriate behaviours.  We are not doing so well, however, on eliminating the undesirable ones.  In particular, the one that really urks me is the gleeful and determined shot-put throwing of mummy's carefully prepared delicious morsels of sustenance onto the floor.... day after day, night after night... rejected treats thump ingloriously onto the floor boards.  Every meal those quick little fingers fling her food forth...
So... It is time for (dum dum dum duuuuum)  THE THINKING CORNER!
So it has begun.  She gets one warning... which she laughs in the face of like an impassioned toreador... And then, with the next splat of fruit or crumple of cracker... its OFF TO THE THINKING CORNER!
I am not entirely sure that she gets it.  I fairly sure that she is not getting that the thinking corner is not supposed to be fun.  At the moment she finds it highly amusing...  mummy makes a funny face with her eyebrows all pulled down, and her voice goes all deeep and serious like Pa-Pa... and then wooosh she is flying through the air and plopped on her bott in the corner of the hallway.  Mummy then turns her back, arms crossed, and the angel commences chuckling.... she grins and giggles, and teases mummy by starting to crawl away then stopping... and waiting for mummy to sit her back on her bum... and this game goes on until mummy sternly says ok... takes her hand and walks her back to the offending food, demands that she picks it up and hands it to mummy... and then she goes back to eating.  Or refusing to eat...as is usually the case.  Yes its all a great fun game!   We even found a special thinking corner when we went out for lunch yesterday... Cafe's have thinking corners too!

I am persevering, choosing to remain focussed on the belief that sooner or later she will tire of the time out ritual, and then it will get less fun, and then it might actually start working!
(Disclaimer : Picture is NOT MY CHILD...its from Flickr, really!)