Take Me To Post Comment Form One of the great things about the town where I live is there's such a cross-section of society who lives here. You have your aging hippies, your new hippies and you have your "alterna-parents."

OK, maybe there's other types, too, but often I feel that's who mainly lives here. And while I'm pretty cool with that, there are times when iI'll be at the playground and I seriously just want to slap this new breed of parent, which I'm dubbing the alterna-parent.

You see, alterna-parents subscribe to particular parenting philosophies -- in my opinion, as a way to go against mainstream parenting -- but what I find funny is that they don't see how they have, by doing this, locked themselves into a parenting box before even learning what their child responds to best.

Don't get me wrong, I think there's benefits to all different types of parenting philosophies. but that's just it -- each one has its benefits and each one has its detractions. Each kid is different, too, so what works for one doesn't necessarily work for the other.

Take a recent conversation overheard at the playground near my house. One mom was lamenting how there weren't any full-time "alternative" day cares in town, and while the Montessori-style day care she uses says they don't use time outs, she has heard them say that to another toddler on occasion and, well, she just doesn't like her child to be in that kind of environment.

Then, she proceeded to ask her 2-year-old to remove the ants congregating on his muffin by saying, "Excuse me, ants."

Seriously. I'm not making this up.

My first thought was, what's so bad about time out? I'm against hitting and spanking, and if you have a child who is being especially devilish and simply WILL NOT listen -- even after you tell them no, explain the consequences of their actions and divert them to something else -- why not make them sit with their own devilish thoughts for a little bit?

Now, I'm not pretending to know what goes on in Sofia's head, but I'm sure the second she's left alone, her first thought is, "boy, this stinks."

 Now, you can find most anything to support your line of belief on the Internet, so I've posted two links to two different philosophies on discipline. It seems the "no time out" rule is pretty darn popular, because a simple Google search of "Time out discipline" didn't bring up anything against the practice.

But hey, what do I know? I guess I'm just an alterna-alterna-parent.

Click here to read an article about using time outs effectively

Click here to read an article about using positive reinforcement to discipline (although, understand that it took quite a few Google searches to come up with an article that didn't mention time outs as a viable discipline option)