Time Out's Time is Over

Imagine that your boss approaches you and says that there’s a problem with your most recent job performance, then demands that you sit in the conference room alone for ten minutes to think about what you’ve done. You would probably feel a mix of embarrassment, confusion and anger, plus you’d have no idea what the exact nature of your poor performance was. An effective manager is a leader and a mentor who communicates well. A more effective strategy would be to join you in the conference room and talk with you about how you could improve. Why should children be treated with any less respect and consideration than this? Time out is only effective if you join the child to discuss what happened, what motivated the action and what could have been done differently.

Giving a hockey player a time out for fighting so that they can calm down is a different situation. In the case of violence a protective use of force, rather than a punitive use of force, is effective. In his book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. writes, “The intention behind the protective use of force is to prevent injury or injustice. The intention behind the punitive use of force is to cause individuals to suffer for their perceived misdeeds. When we grab a child who is running into the street to prevent the child from being injured, we are applying a protective force. The punitive use of force, on the other hand, might involve physical or psychological attack, such as spanking the child or reproofs like, ‘How could you be so stupid!’”

Punitive force, or punishment, takes a variety of forms that are prevalent disciplinary tools in our society. These include judgmental labeling, shaming, withholding affection, withholding privileges, bribing with rewards or even yelling and spanking. These tactics attempt to scare and coerce people into behaving, but they do not teach something new to correct the behavior. 

Punishment focuses on the negative, rather than taking the opportunity to focus on positives such as your family’s values. If you suspect your child of lying, take the opportunity to explain that you value honesty and trust. This way, you’re focusing on the positive behaviors you’d like to encourage your child to engage in, rather than harming your child’s self-esteem by calling them a liar.


Furthermore, we want our children to act with integrity intentionally, not because they’re afraid of our reaction. Engaging in this type of discuss also presents an opportunity to find out what was motivating your child’s actions.

Threats and physical violence teach our children to fear us, not to trust us and to be angry with us. This sets the stage for rebellion and resistance. If we do not take the opportunity to talk with our children and mentor them, no matter what age they are, they won’t understand our seemingly sudden outbursts. Try thinking of the situation from their point of view.

Children act from the best of intentions and often they’re just playing and enjoying themselves. Often they're simply trying to meet their needs for exploration, autonomy and joy. Imagine that you’re joyfully playing in the sand. You throw it in the air and watch how it falls to the ground. You’re captivated! Then, your parent grabs your arm and shouts at you for throwing sand in front of everyone at the park. You don’t understand what you did wrong. You’re embarrassed.

Our children learn by watching us. When we hit, they learn to hit. When we are shaming and disrespectful, they learn to behave similarly. In Everday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, Myla observes, “Over the years I have tried again and again to see things from each child’s point of view, and in doing so, often my eyes have been opened to old patterns of relating from my own childhood that were limiting or damaging.”

She continues, “When we sense the presence of something old and destructive, whether it is in the tone of our voice (belittling or minimizing a child’s feelings), a look on our face (disdain or contempt), or in our words (e.g., ‘What’s the matter with you?’ or calling them some kind of hurtful name), we have a precious opportunity to make an important choice. We can choose to continue to go on with our automatic and sometimes cruel behavior, which in some ways may feel familiar and comfortable because we may have grown up with it; or we can stop and try to see more clearly behind our own intense reaction in that moment. We can try, despite ourselves, to see with fresh eyes and ask, ‘What am I doing right now? Why am I reacting so strongly in this situation? Where is this going to take me if I keep going in this direction? What does my child really need from me in this moment? What choices do I have here?”

During the last conversation I had with my grandmother before she passed away, she said, “I’ve seen how your father treats you sometimes and I want to apologize because that’s how I treated him. He got that from me.” I thought that was such a deep sentiment coming from such a tough woman. She continued and said, “You know, I hit him on top of the head with a pot a couple of times.” My father doesn’t remember this and he never did anything like that to me. But my grandmother remembered it and the guilt haunted her. With tears in her eyes, she explained how she lived in a small New York City apartment during the depression and how her own mother used to call her names. She looked me in the eye and presented what I consider to be her dying wish, “I hope it stops with you.” I replied, “Okay, it will.”

My father and I have healed and strengthened our own relationship by learning new ways of communicating that include respect and consideration for one another. I still have a lot of work to do in this area because when I’m irritable I am rude and short-tempered. Therefore, to honor my grandmother’s request and to fulfill my own dreams of being a kind parent, I take classes at the Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting (CNEVP). It is there that I’ve learned alternatives to time out.

Giving a child a time out without the benefit of having you sit with them to process what has happened is really a type of temporary isolation that is quite sad. Whether you use time outs to get a break or to break a child of a behavior that you don’t like, there are more effective ways to get our needs for peace and order met that respect the feelings of all involved. The alternative involves communication and connection, as well as practice and patience.

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