Time Out for Kids – Correct Steps and Common Mistakes

Over the last few decades, the use of time out for kids has become an increasingly popular method for dealing with inappropriate behavior in kids.

Here’s the good news about the use of time-outs: It is supported by science as an effective way to correct toddler behavior. The bad news? Most people are doing it wrong.

Should you use Time-Out

Five decades of research show that using time out to discipline is a proven disciplinary technique. But it seems to get a bad rep in the media in recent years.

Some believe that toddler time out punishment is ineffective because they don’t teach children better behavior. Yet, giving time outs for toddlers is still a toddler discipline technique officially recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Why is there a disagreement?

That’s because 85% of parents use time-out incorrectly, and the incorrect usage can hurt children^​1​.

What is Time Out

Time-out’s full name is time-out from positive reinforcement. It is a procedure in which the child is briefly removed from an environment reinforcing bad behavior and placed in a safe space that is not reinforcing.

Child psychologists invented, tested, and modified this strategy in the 1950s. Throughout the 1960s to 1980s, a large body of research was dedicated to proving that it could stop unwanted behavior ^​2​.

Unfortunately, adequate training or correct information is not always available. Most parents rely on other parents, the internet, parenting books, or guesswork. With time, time-out has grown to include improper elements that barely resemble the original method.

For more help on calming tantrums, check out this step-by-step guide

Common mistakes

Use time-out to punish

One of the most common misuses of time-out is the focus on using it as a punishment – an unnatural negative consequence imposed on the child to make them feel bad.

Time-out is not intended to be a punishment. It is a behavior modification tool that teaches a child to make good behavioral decisions. The child learns to make a decision that has a certain consequence. Giving a warning every time allows the child a chance to make a good choice.

However, when young children misbehave or throw temper tantrums, frustrated caregivers often find it difficult to control their own feelings. They use timeouts out of anger to punish.

Time-out becomes a punishment when it’s given with hostility, yelling, intimidating tone of voice, long duration, or humiliation, such as using a naughty chair or standing in a time out corner in front of the whole class. None of these practices teach your child how to behave appropriately.

Using time out chairs for toddlers to shame or humiliate the child is particularly damaging as shame and humiliation are linked to a higher risk for depression later in adolescents^​9​.

Not model emotion regulation

Toddlers learn self-regulating and self-control skills through observation and parent-child interactions. Parents who exhibit harsh or hostile emotions when giving time-outs model dysregulated behavior for the child to imitate^​10​. So when time-outs are used as punishment, the only things the child learns are feelings of isolation, rejection, and emotional dysregulation.

Rejection and isolation induce relational pains. In brain scans, scientists found that when a child experiences relational pain, the brain areas activated are the same areas activated by physical pain​11​. We know that physical assault, such as corporal punishment, can hurt a developing mind​12​. So, when time-outs are used as punishment, the pain caused can also harm the developing brain.

Tell the child to think about their mistake

Giving time-out is also not about giving the child time to “reflect” or “think about what they did.”

No young kids ever come out of a time-out remorseful or vowing never to misbehave again.

Instead, they are probably more resentful and more determined to avoid getting caught the next time or seek revenge on the person who got them into trouble.

Beware of Internet Guidance

In a 2015 study, Amy Drayton and colleagues surveyed over 100 respected Internet websites. They found that no website included complete and accurate information on using time-out^​4​.

This finding is alarming because many parents depend on the Internet for parenting information. Since the publication of that study, several websites have updated their advice and tips in their articles, but many still retain inconsistent or inaccurate information, confirmed by another study in 2018^​11​.

When frustrated parents follow incorrect information and do not obtain the desired effect, they may become angrier and resort to harsh methods, such as yelling or physical punishment.

These methods are strongly associated with behavioral problems, such as aggressive behavior, conduct disorder, or oppositional defiance disorder, and internalizing problems, such as anxiety or depression^{​12–14​}.

Have trouble motivating your child? Check out:

How To Motivate Kids

Final Thoughts

Although, when used appropriately, time out for kids is an effective strategy, it is not an end-all-be-all discipline. Parents need a variety of disciplinary tools for different situations.

Time-outs are also not the best way to deal with certain toddler issues, such as tantrums.

Using distractions to redirect a budding tantrum, modeling appropriate behavior for toddlers to emulate, teaching self-regulation skills to calm big emotions, and using inductive discipline to explain natural consequences are all good alternatives to add to the big bag of parenting tricks.

References