" how he perceives their “bad” behavior, and his own." LOL - I think you're doing a great job Carter, being as the kid already understands the idea of out of the ordinary behavior, plus timeout. Now he just needs a little fine tuning. As former preschool teacher and school librarian, I used my "teacher voice" on every kid I've come in contact with, including my own. All the grown nieces, nephews, and others, joke about one of my old go to phrases, to describe bad behavior. They sometimes all sang in unison: "Stop acting ugly", and they'd crack up laughing. Apparently it stuck :-)