I've been off of blogging for some time now. I've been almost totally off of comments for a couple weeks. I've apparently even let a blog containing elements of the government takeover of healthcare slip my wrath due to being gone.

I'm on my summer vacation. For a while I was entertaining out of town friends coming to Vegas to party and gamble. It's hard to blog or show up to ebaums when you're playing cards and partying for 14 hours a day. For the last week I've been in southern California without a computer (my wife's laptop that we brought crapped out). Here's a picture of my kids and I playing steel drums at the San Diego Wild Animal Park: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/81027303/

Froggy's blog about his mistaken idea that students can have shock collars or some similar device attached to them and dangle's suggestion that I brow beat my children reminded me of a particular incident of making a correction on my son.

My son was about three and one half years old. We were having Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. My son decided that he didn't care for the food selection and that he wasn't hungry when the meal was being served. While everybody was eating, he wanted to run amok around my parent's house without supervision. I explained to him that he had to remain seated while we were eating the meal whether he wanted to eat or not. My son wanted to argue the point but a three year old has trouble with debate. I eventually gave him a choice between staying seated at the table or sitting in time out. When he continued to argue, I put him in a little chair in the corner of the adjacent room for time out. He lost his mind. I let him calm himself down while in time out.

After five minutes he was calmed down. I called him back to the table. "Would you like to sit at the table with us or do you need to go back and sit in time out?"

My son continued to try to make his point about running amok in my parent's house unsupervised. I explained that he only had two choices: 1) sit at the table 2) sit in time out. When he tried to continue the debate, I sent him back to time out. He lost his mind. He did, however, calm down more quickly this time.

A minute or two after he was calmed down, I invited him back to the table. "Are you ready to sit at the table with us yet, or do you need more time out?"

My son considered for a moment. At 3 ½ years old, he looks up at me, kicks his chair over, and walks back to time out. He sits down in his little plastic chair, crosses his arms, stares at us, and waits patiently for us to finish our meal.

He's seven now. This boy is going to be tons of fun at 16.