When I think of time out I think both of time out for discipline with children and time out for moms to be away from their kids. For me, the latter of the two is most important. When I get my “me” time I find that I am a happier mom and the need for time out for the kids is much less.
I use time out a lot less than I thought I would as a mom with my son. When he was younger, in his 2’s, we would do more of a time in. He would have to sit next to me on the couch until he calmed down. My husband would often hold him until he was calm. We also didn’t have the problem of making him stay in time out.
When he was in his 3’s, we used time out a few times. He would have to go to his room until he could re-join the group. He takes discipline pretty seriously and gets very upset when he is corrected so it has been pretty easy to take a more relaxed approach to time out. We just didn’t use it very much as a discipline tool.
Now that he is in his 4’s, I still don’t use a traditional view of time out. I use more of a separation from the problem. That can be a separation from his sister. We have two play mats and they are sometimes required to each be at their own play area until they can try playing together again. The other thing is to be separated from the toy or activity that is the problem.
Probably the easiest occasion to use time out for me is when I am with other families in a large group situation such as a play date at the park. This is an occasion when sitting on the sidelines of the play situation fits best for us. My son is pretty shy and so he is usually not the aggressor in the group but I see a time when this might be very useful for my soon to be 22 month old.
I will be interested to find out if other moms find time out really useful and effective in their families.
Time out in the corner chair is something that we used for a while, but it wasn't effective for our kids. Since they don't care much about punishment, we had to find something that they cared about. Our oldest gets to go to her room for the rest of the day once she's made 5 bad choices that are on a predetermined list and goes to bed 1 hour early. Our youngest gets 15 minutes in his crib because he also does not care if he is put in the corner. Totally opposite from what you do, but it works for our kids. Our oldest went from going to her room for the rest of the day/early bedtime 3 times a week to about once a month. Such an improvement. She still has some grace throughout her day because she gets 4 chances before the 5th time (we use tickets to mark those chances).
ReplyDelete