Time Outs

I wanted to follow up about a question on the "Mom Panel" today on Twin Cities Live. The question was about time outs.

Our hope when we put a child in a time out is that she will then learn that she should not have been doing the behavior right before the time out. We are led to believe that the child will actually be thinking about their actions during this time out. However, the reality is the child spends the time being angry with the situation (or trying to get out of the time out) and does not actually think about it. Unfortunately this takes away the opportunity for learning. It's not really teaching long term learning as to why the child should discontinue the behavior that she was doing to begin with.

Take time to think about what you want the child to learn in these moments and work back from there. It might be as simple as taking some time to help the child calm down, with a hug or a hold. It might mean the child needs to move on to another activity or environment, "I can tell it's hard for you to play with Jimmy right now. That tells me it's time for us to go home now."

There are many other ways I can help families find alternatives to time outs to help your child learn from their actions that need to be altered and to help you keep the connection between you and your child at the same time. I recently posted my fall schedule of classes. The Reflective Child Guidance class discusses many of these alternatives.