Three young kids and another one on the way here. My middle child just turned 4 last month and he’s a handful. I’ll explain what happened yesterday because I need advice.

It was around 5:45 pm, dinner time. My husband was in the living room playing with our youngest, my oldest was doing homework on the kitchen table and I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. My 4 year old was playing with a soccer ball in the dining room, which he know he is not allowed to.

I told him to go put it away in the toy box once. Completely ignored me. Twice. Whined about it. I counted 1…2… then he ran to the toy box but instead of putting it there, he tossed it across the room into the kitchen. I was getting dinner out of the oven and he ran to catch the ball right as the oven was wide opened and I had the dish in my hands. My six year old saw him close to the oven and ran and pushed him over so he wouldn’t burn himself.

Our rules for timeout are pretty straightforward and the kids know them. 1st warning, 2nd warning, count to three, timeout, and any time they are physical with us or a sibling.

I sent my son to timeout after that immediately and he whined that my oldest should also get a timeout because she pushed him. I tried to explain to him that she was just trying to help him not to get really hurt (she got burnt when she was his age so is really careful about that now).

I don’t really think she did anything wrong here but now my son says that I broke the rule so he shouldn’t have to follow it.

I know I’m the parent here obviously but how can I try to regain control of this situation? What should I have done differently?