Time Out issues....

Renee - posted on 01/08/2010

Btw, a sense of humor also helps...the desire to enjoy all moments with your child can make the biggest difference in your own reactions. One of my sons was fascinated with Spider Man...he was 6 or 7 at the time. I left the boys watching a movie while I took a shower. When I came down the steps...I saw that my entire dining room was absolutely one giant spider web!!!! In that short time, my son took a ball of string and tied it from one item to the next, weaving it across the room until the room itself...from chandelier to china hutch and floors was a mesh of string! My eyes were like giant wide eyed saucers...i first hollered for my son to come here...by the time he arrived and I looked at his face....staring up with such pride and joy over his unique masterpiece, I didn't have the heart to follow through with my first reaction. I looked at him and asked..."what is this?" He was soooo proud when he asked..."Do you like it mommy?" I couldn't help but chuckle and we both stood there laughing at the absolutely intense maze of string throughout the room. A ridiculous question of "Hmmm...and how are we supposed to eat in here?" resulted in even more laughter. I had no choice but to commend him on his creativity...while pointing out what a shame it was that we'd have to cut it all down (of course I made him help). But finding the good in this incident luckily helped his creativity to thrive and he's become quite an artist with an aptitude for mathematical thinking skills and spatial relations...with an impressive level of creative thinking. Had I totally flipped out on him like my initial reaction was...he may have had very creative skills suppressed and never have found his natural talents.

Renee - posted on 01/08/2010

I have several suggestions that worked for me. I have raised 4 boys...very active boys. They're now older and my issues are much different than those during the younger years. However, I can tell you that even though all the boys were with the same father, from the same gene pool, they all responded differently to various forms of discipline and punishment. What worked for one child didn't always work for the other. I would just recommend that you try a variety of options and find out what works best. Even then, when something worked it often would stop working and I needed to change to another form of discipline to be effective and maintain my authority. Being prepared to change it up from time to time is also important. Here are a few things I've learned that have been not only insightful to my understanding of their behaviors but have helped them understand as well.

To begin with, I've learned that almost all children under 24 months don't have a total understanding of their behaviors or their feelings. They don't even know what to call the things they feel. It took me some time to recognize that my sons acted out behaviors when they were frustrated or bored. Helping them understand their feelings and what to call them was the best start for us. One of my sons dealt with boredom by dropping decorative and delicate glass items into my toilet bowl in which the broken glass pieces produced a prism of beautiful colors in the water! While it was fascinating to him, it was certainly not an acceptable activity to me! lol! It's not that he "was" bad or naughty but the results of his choice of activities were "bad" results. I wanted to scream when I saw a 13 year collection of glass items reduced to shards, but I didn't. I couldn't change anything as the deed was done. It was probably shock that kept me from reacting according to what I felt and fortunately for me, I had those moments of non-reaction. It gave me just enough time to realize that not only did they not totally understand their own feelings, but they also didn't and couldn't understand any emotional outbursts I might have had. I did calmly and simply explain that breaking things of mine just to see the pretty colors hurt me. I didn't punish that incident but did tell him he couldn't do it again or I'd have to take something special of his away from him. He eventually did develop an understanding of that concept. I had to help each of them understand their feelings of boredom or frustration so they could identify it. At those ages, when they feel those things, they just don't know what to call it. Once they knew how to identify the feeling with a word label, they were equipped to later tell me when they were bored and together we'd find acceptable things to occupy their time so they didn't feel bored and get into activities that were a problem. It wasn't long before they would say things like, "Mommy, I just don't know what to do with myself" and I could thank them for sharing their feelings and help them understand that they were feeling "bored" and suggest that we find something else to do that would be okay. That gave way to them announcing they were bored when they felt that way in the future. In a way it was a little more of a positive reinforcement. I'm glad to say that the number of incidents like these ceased completely.

As the boys got older there were many methods to interrupt a behavior. I always talked to them about the first incident w/o punishment. Repeat offenses resulted in consequences. Early on, they might lose their favorite play toy...I kept a time out box for those toys. When they corrected a behavior they earned it back. I tried to make it more rewarding for the positive behavior rather than negative for the unacceptable behavior. When one of my sons at age 7 learned to curse like a truck driver when he got angry or didn't get what he wanted, time outs had no effect and only increased his anger. My alternative was to explain that curse words were not "smart" words and since he didn't have the vocabulary to express himself, he had to use his newly learned dictionary skills to find 10 new words of at least 7 letters and write them down with their definitions. Funny that having to do that, required him to sit silently and calm himself down to focus on something other than his anger and at the same time, actually helped him build a strong vocabulary. I'm happy to report that his grades improved from a C average and that he is now a well spoken young gentleman with straight A's. All boys come to the dinner table equipped to discuss bodily functions. Pee, poop & farts were all bathroom functions....so bathroom talk at the dinner table required a bathroom time out...in the room where they were appropriate to use. Ending a play date was also sometimes difficult, as they didn't want to leave. Rather than scold them for not listening, they lost that many minutes for the next time. If they delayed leaving more than 5 minutes after I had to leave....every minute was a minute earlier they would have to leave the next time. It worked. It also eliminated any public arguments or temper tantrums with a 4 or 5 yr old child at the playground or in the middle of Chuck E. Cheese's. I just reinforced it for the next event and the lesson was usually learned quickly after a few times. I always made sure that after every punishment was implemented, that I took the time to later discuss what happened and make sure they understood. In those talks, I always made sure I told them how much I loved them, no matter what they did that resulted in discipline.

Lastly, I'd strongly encourage everyone who uses any form of punishment system for negative behaviors to also form some sort of reward system for positive behaviors. They can be very simple things. When my children would cooperate while grocery shopping w/o any negative behaviors I'd end our trip with them picking out a reward they would like...a small play thing, coloring book, favorite snack or even a candy treat. I can't tell you what benefits I reaped just by saying to them, "Wow! I'm soooo impressed at how well you behaved for me in the store today, that I think you really deserve a special treat or reward." I think it's more of a balance issue. If you can catch them doing bad things, you can also catch them doing good things.

Not all of these methods worked with all of my children. Ironically, the more aggressive behaviors responded best to correction with the positive rewards. I'm not saying these methods are the only ones or that what I chose to do was in any way better than other methods. I'm only sharing that these things worked best for me with my children and might be worth an effort to try with your children. There is no "right" way to "right" thing to do. What works best is that which your child responds to best. Good luck and I'd love to see a future post of how things work out for you.

Rebecca - posted on 01/08/2010

my son is 24 months and his day care does time outs, so he's been doing this since about `18 months. at day care, its a controlled environment, he picks up his toys after playing with them, and so on, and if is put into time out he will stay put. at home, he knows he can get away with more, usually, so he puts on a temper tantrum when i try to do time out. he wont usually stay, but the act of initiating the time out lets him know what he did is wrong. its a good start,

Chestina - posted on 01/06/2010

lol...yea right..if your child is acting up..and they have a play pin or a crib pop them right into it and talk to them to let them know that their act is not okay. Yea they are young but they know when they are putting on a act.

Heather - posted on 01/06/2010

Thank you so much ive been sticking to it.. shes getting pretty good..

Kelli - posted on 12/20/2009

My son is 18 months old, and I have heard people say you arent "supposed to do time out until 24 months but I think it is all about the child. If your child knows that they are doing something they shouldnt... I personally think its okay to do time out. I started time out around 15 months. At first I would just put him in the play pen for 1 minute just so he would get the concept of time out. I just now started making him do time out in the corner in the hallway only because it is somewhere where there is no toys around, he cant see the tv and there is not anything excitting around him. I don't make him face the corner I just sit him down and keep him there for one minute. I have to stand close by to make sure he doesnt get up but I sort of face the other direction, that way he is getting NO attention. I have heard it is one minute for every age. age 1=1minute, 2=2minutes and so on. I dont know if this is the "right" method about going about it, its just what worked for me. I hope this helps some.