With one caveat: this time-out doesn’t work if you’re on a clock (e.g., you need your kid to get out the door for school). WHEN: Our version of the Calm-Down is ideal for a child who’s throwing a tantrum, or is otherwise so worked up that she can’t remember why. (We’ve even gotten to the point where occasionally, when one of the girls is upset about something, she’ll take herself to our basement, pop in a yoga DVD, and work through a session.) Yoga also works, if your child likes yoga. Other kinds of “calm-down” time-outs include parent-guided deep breathing, counting, or other relaxation techniques. WHAT: For us, this means sending a child up to her room. This is the first kind of time-out I used on my children, starting with the Terrible Threes. (Some might say grounding a teen counts as a type of “time-out.”) BUT, these are the four types I’ve discovered so far: 1. (Using the wrong time-out method is as ineffective as some lucky parents would say ALL time-outs are!)įor all I know, there are more than four kinds of time-outs. I’m sure any parent with superhuman restraint and perfect children would disagree.īUT…for anyone who shares even a small sliver of my reality, you need to understand the different kinds of time-outs, so you can use each one correctly. Starting with this:ĭid you know there are different kinds of time-outs? Four Time-Outs And When To Use EachĪnd now that I understand this, I also realize that time-outs aren’t always a bad thing! SO…for the rest of us mere mortals, here’s my on-the-job training on Time-Outs And When To Use Them. If your family can survive all of these time-out free, without anyone losing their temper, then you should write a guest post for this blog. Or if you prefer, throw in a major life stressor or two. But if that’s not enough for you, add in garden-variety sleep deprivation, or kids who can’t sleep, or sleep deprivation of the parental variety. Right there, you’ve got a recipe for time-outs. And the weird dynamic of siblings feeding off each other, as only siblings can. And kids who balk at increasing responsibilities as they grow. Not to mention the challenges of increasing school demands. (Kudos to you if your children are older than mine and you’ve NEVER used time-outs.)Īnd luckily for me, the other mamas were kind enough not to laugh at, or attempt to correct, my naïveté.įast-forward through the Terrible Threes, and the Terrible Fours, and the Still-Sometimes-Testy Fives. It was around this time that I first became aware of blog posts on The Time-Out. I remember thinking, “I’ll NEVER use time-outs on my children! Why would anyone need to?”įortunately, I kept my mouth shut, besides mumbling “oh, we don’t do time-outs” when someone asked me and then changing the subject. When Kimmie was two and I was pregnant with Essie, I’d hear other mamas at play dates trading stories on kids being in time-out.
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