re: The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts

Cy — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:18:23 GMT

Another brilliant comment from Cassie.

re: The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts

Cassie — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:50:14 GMT

We spank and it works great. No long drawn out battles over time outs or going to their room to play there or yell at me. Just a quick swat to the behind and problem solved. No it does not teach that hitting is okay. My kids dont go around swatting peoples' behinds and I see plenty of non-spanked kids smacking other kids in the face all the time. Non spanked kids are sneaky.

re: The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts

aaustin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:57:13 GMT

I wrote a long post about how to do timeouts correctly and effectively at prettybabies.blogspot.com/2007/07/wfmw-how-to-do-time-outs-correctly.html">prettybabies.blogspot.com/.../wfmw-how-to-do-time-outs-correctly.html

And now my 2 year old's time out is over, so I have to talk to her about why she got it. She hit her sister in the head with a shoe. *sigh*

Amy @ prettybabies.blogspot.com

re: The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts

theclevermom — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:40:13 GMT

We used to do punitive time-outs and after four years realised, surprise surprise, they don't work. In fact, they probably made my son sneakier and angrier, desiring revenge for our having forced him to sit still and ponder why it's not right to pull toys out of his friend's hands.

After a little reading, we decided to alter time-outs to "taking a break" or "cool-downs". When my son is getting up to no good and there needs to be a break in the action, instead of yelling and forcing him to take a time out, I calmly let him know that whatever he was doing wasn't acceptable behaviour and that I think he needs a cool down period so he can calm down and do something else. I invite him to go in his room by himself and grab a book, get some toys, grab his sketchpad and draw, any pleasant activity that will distract him from the bad behaviour.

I take a break from time to time too. If I'm getting out of control and having a bad parenting day, I stop myself and announce that "mommy needs a cool down" and leave the room to do something pleasant and calming. My son sees that I'm regulating my behaviour appropriately and that cool downs aren't scary and are in fact beneficial and refreshing.

Also, instead of telling my son what I don't want him to do, I tell him what I do want him to do, or what action and behaviour I like to see him doing.

For example, yesterday he kept jumping on my back whenever I was sitting on the ground. This is pretty scary and painful for me as I have a weird shoulder issue that sometimes prevents me from using one arm. After repeated scoldings, which were born out of my desire to express my frustration and anger and not a a desire to teach my son discipline, I stopped barking at him to stop jumping on me and started telling him, "I really like it when you hug me gently. In fact, I REALLY like it when you tell me you want to give me a hug." And what do you know, no more jumping on my back all day. Instead I got lots of hugs and requests to be picked up for a snuggle.

Positive reinforcement works a thousand times better than punishing.