"Time out" - how to make them effective and helpful?
"if you don't stop that, it's time out"
We're finding a need for calming situations down at home, and are extending our disciplinary process of "two warnings and it's taken away" to a more holistic "two warnings and you are removed from the situation to cool off". Especially in the evenings, the kid can get into a frenzy and will leap from one forbidden behavior to another one absolutely on purpose or otherwise spin out of control.
Have you employed time outs? Why, why not? How did you introduce them? What age did you start? How do you deal with the time out escalating the emotional eruption from whining to screaming? How do you resume after timeout? Do you hug and comfort afterwards? We have a plan that we're sticking to for now, but would love to hear other experiences as well.
3 Answers
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We have a 3.5 year old boy we had started doing "thinking step" with starting at around age 2 for when he is purposefully breaking rules. After 2 warnings, of which during the 2nd we'll remind him that thinking step is next, he is removed from the situation much like 'time out'. I guess the name difference is just that instead of him just getting a "time out" from the situation, it reminds us that he can use the time to think about why he was removed. We leave him alone despite any crying (although he usually doesn't) on the bottom step of the stairs. After 2-3 minutes we go to him and explain again what he's thinking about. In the beginning it was a very one-sided conversation. These days, we start by saying, "What have you been thinking about? Why are you on the thinking step?" We used to do "hugs & cuddles" after, but have stopped doing that as part of the process because we see the "punishment" as part of how things go, not some event that requires reconciliation. But if he is really upset, I'll ask if he wants a hug. or we do some deep breaths together. This is highly recommended. We do "pumpkin breaths" where we breathe in as the arms come out to the side and hands touch overhead. arms stay round like a pumpkin. it kind of looks like a ballerina pose. then we blow breath out through the mouth. 3-5 of these usually calms him down pretty good. We count them out loud together. It helps me calm down too.
Sometimes he gets really upset about things, mainly as an overreaction or temper tantrum, and bursts into tears over things. For this we try to talk him through it but if he continues to be in a foul mood, we will ask him to sit in a room alone until he calms down, checking in on him every few minutes to ask if he's done crying and if he's ready to be with everyone. Sometimes these days, as soon as we open the door, we hear "I'm not done crying!". To which we say, "Ok, you can come out whenever you're ready." Sometimes when we see that he is about to start, we ask if he needs to go be by himself. This usually gets him to calm himself down right away, and we do deep breaths together.
Good luck. And remember, they're supposed to be breaking the rules and testing boundaries. :)
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We have an almost-2 year old and have recently started doing the same. When things seem to be spiraling out of control, she pushes her brother, say, after being told not to, we tell her to go to her room. She cries there for a minute or two and then we check on her. Tell her we love her and remind her gently, almost happily, like it's a silly thing, why she was sent there "We can push doors, we can push strollers, but we don't push Brothers!" and we greet her warmly when she comes back to the group. We don't let her come back into the common areas until she's stopped crying, but if that's the case we tell her "Come back and play when you're done crying!"
Telling her "No pushing" was probably not the most effective way we could have delivered the message because we just identified a line that would be interesting to cross, but we often fall into that. Maybe something like "Oh! That hurts brother, ouch! If you want to push something, let's go find your wagon".
When we're on top of our game, we're trying to think a few steps ahead to avoid having to say No. Imagine being told No after No on all your very good ideas! (Not hard to imagine, she tells me "No" on all my best ideas and it sucks! ;) ) So, Love & Logic - style we're trying to give her 1001 choices throughout the day so that she feels like she has some control over her life (even things like "do you want to say BLUE or do you want to say RED?", but also clothes, shoes, "climb in yourself or have me fly you in?", when crossing a street "hold hands like a sideways-train, or a regular train?")
It helps to keep in mind how funny it all is. Hope something in here helps! We definitely lose it from time to time, but then we might say, out-loud "oh! that's right! You're 2 years old and I've been forgetting to give you choices!"
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We have an almost 2-year-old boy, and we have used timeouts a handful of times already -- as sparingly as possible so they don't become too commonplace (and therefore ignored), and only when I really couldn't get anything else to work.
What we've done is provided one or two warnings (so he would know what he's not supposed to be doing), and then when he continued what he was doing, he'd end up in the corner. He tried to leave a few times the first time, but we always just gently picked him up and put him back. He usually calmed down for us after a little while. After a few minutes (depending on whether or not he stayed in the corner like he was supposed to), we would go back to him, remind him why he was there, and then give him a hug. And then pretty much he'd resume or start a new activity and that would be that.
I have to say, we maybe only used timeouts 3-4 times in total when he was closer to 18 months, and we haven't had to in months... Not sure if that means he's biding his time for the next round, or if he got the message early?
Thanks for all the helpful comments. The way it's working now is that it's not so much that she's being naughty, but that she's just spinning a bit out of control when we ask her if she needs to calm down or tell her she needs to take a moment to calm down. Now, usually by the time we reach the guest room bed and sit her down, she's calmed herself down, and says that she's "OK" and we can return. It really isn't a punishment, just a little moment away from what was getting her frazzled. We have only once actually sent her to calm herself down. She got distracted before she reached the destination, and occupied herself happily with something else, which worked just as fine for us.
- katja, Jan 11, 2011