Fussbucket

Cross-posted on MotherTalkers

by Stacey

Sometimes the timeout is a mom’s only friend. Gone are the days that many of us would feel comfortable giving our naughty one a swat on the behind, a mouth full of soap, or an admonishment to “Wait until your father gets home!” But according to this article in Slate, we may not be using the technique correctly and might even be reinforcing bad behavior.

Most parents already have a rough working notion of how to use timeouts. When a child does something wrong, you send him off to sit somewhere by himself and do nothing for a set amount of time, like a hockey referee putting a player in the penalty box. Two minutes on a bench for hitting at the playground, five minutes on a stool in the corner for talking back, and so on. Because the timeout seems so simple, most people feel comfortable using it intuitively, guided by assumptions that the punishment should fit the crime, that a timeout gives the child an opportunity to reflect and repent, and that it teaches the child who’s in control.

The problem comes when parents use more and longer timeouts. These proportional punishments, such as deciding to leave a child in timeout for only a few minutes for a minor infraction and longer for more egregious behavior, won’t help change the behavior that’s causing you to give the timeout in the first place, the article says.

Excessive timeouts do more harm than good, making a child irritable and more volatile in his reactions, and more inclined to escape and avoid the adults who punish him. Just as important, parents who punish excessively tend to escalate punishment, increasing the side effects and losing track of the original intent of giving a timeout, which is to improve a child’s behavior. The opposite happens, in fact.

Okay, so how should we do it? Apparently there’s a reliable body of evidence on how to use a timeout most effectively. “The technique’s full name, ‘timeout from reinforcement,’ provides the key,” the article says.

Timeout has nothing to do with justice, repentance, or authority. Rather, it follows a simple logic: Attention feeds a behavior, and a timeout is nothing more than a brief break from attention in any form—demands, threats, explanations, rewards, hugs … everything.

According to the article, timeouts should be used sparingly (more than one or two per day for the same offense is too much), brief (all the positive benefit on behavior is stored in the first couple of minutes), immediate to the bad behavior (delayed timeouts are useless), and administered calmly.

Finally the last bit of advice from the article is to praise your child for cooperating (if that’s the case) once the timeout is over. “We want to build compliance whenever it occurs, and especially under difficult situations. We want the child to go to timeout when we tell him to, so we reward that behavior with praise,” the article says. “It does not have to be effusive, but, like all effective praise, it should still specify what the child did—It’s good that you went straight to timeout when I asked you to, and you sat quietly for the whole time, like a big boy—and combine verbal encouragement with a gentle pat or other contact.”

By the way, if you have to drag or restrain your child to get them to comply, the article says you’re doing it wrong. Instead, you should add minutes on to the amount of time your child has to sit aside (up to a few additional minutes) and then start taking away privileges.

If all else fails give yourself a timeout instead.

I use timeouts occasionally and I’m always surprised at how upset my son gets about it. I try not to talk to him while he’s sitting on the couch by himself, but it’s hard to resist. I don’t think I’m especially good at it, but often it’s all I got. What do you think of timeouts? Are they effective?