"'Time Outs' Don't Work"

Sometimes when people talk about spanking kids, they say they need to do so, because "Time Outs don't work."  As if there were only two choices.

"Time Out" is usually a place--a chair, a room, a corner.  When a child is "misbehaving," a caretaker can tell the child to go this place.  Sometimes it's a break, a place to slow down.  And sometime it's a punishment.  One minute per year is one general rule for an amount of time for a child to spend in "Time Out."  After that, the child is welcome to re-join the activity, the class, the family.


If you say that "Time Out" doesn't work, I will ask you to define "work."  What I think people mean is that telling a child to go to "Time Out" doesn't result in the child becoming instantly and enduringly obedient.  My belief is that a child rarely becomes instantly obedient, because there's something else getting in the way.  "It" could be a physical state, like hunger, over-excitement, fatigue, or a strong emotion.  If a child is speaking with his/her behavior and an adult tells the child to go sit somewhere, hoping that will instill a life lesson, it's hardly surprising that it doesn't work.  By the time a kid is doing "Time Out"-worthy behavior, "Time Out" will serve only as a temporary intervention.  What the child probably really needs is the meal, the quiet, the hug, and/or the pillow.  It amuses me--in an odd way, of course--that some/most adults instead think it's time to start whacking.  

As if.


You can best teach life lessons to kids without spanking, and it takes time.  It takes repetition, and the repetition needs to happen in calm moments.  The calmness means that there's room to think, to take in.  Totally different situation than when it's time to go sit in "Time Out."