I knew about time outs, I thought they worked well, and is a great alternative for other harsher punishments. I use them all the time on my daycare children, it just how you "do" discipline these days. Positive reinforcement and time outs are what is preached to child care professionals, and I never questioned it, until now.
I came across this article: http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/positive-discipline/timeouts and it made me really second guess what time outs are actually doing to our children.
To summarize the article, here are her top 5 reasons why time outs could be harmful:
1. Timeouts make children feel bad about themselves.
- Usually children are acting out when they already feel bad about themselves, why should we encourage this and continue the cycle? The child is not bad. The behavior just needs to change.
2. Kids need our help to learn to calm themselves.
- They are feeling emotions that are too big for them to handle, they need their parents help to show them how to respond to these really difficult feelings.
3. You're breaking the child's trust in you by triggering his fear of abandonment.
- By placing a child alone, you are teaching them if they are not "good", you will separate yourself from them.
4. Instead of reaffirming your child so she WANTS to please you, time outs create a power struggle.
- The child may think of ways to get back at you for putting them in timeout, it also could create more problems with lying, because they are afraid of the consequences. It creates a mom vs child, rather then being in sync.
5. Because you have to harden your heart to your child's distress during a time out, time out's erode your empathy for your child.
- Empathy is what builds a relationship, if it gets torn down, the relationship will not be as strong.
I really encourage you to read the article as she really breaks these things down.
I don't want my child to feel any of these things. I want them to be able to come to me with any emotions, and not feel as if I will send them away until they are feeling what I want them to feel. I think this sets the stage for how they will come to you as teenagers and adults. If you sent them away whenever they were having really strong emotions, why would they come to you with their big problems?
This also made me think about how we handle temper tantrums for toddlers. I am a nanny for 1 year old twins. They are starting to throw temper tantrums, and we are taught to simply ignore them, as they will not put energy into something that does not get attention. After reading this article, is this the right way to handle that?
Think about it, these toddlers are probably beginning to feel emotions that they have never felt before. By simply ignoring them, we are not helping them find ways to express this emotion, we are teaching them to suppress it. The exact opposite of what we want them to do when they are older.
It totally freaks me out that I have no clue how I should discipline my child. I know that spanking is out, so I just automatically thought time outs was the only other option..
I've been researching and looking into to positive discipline books, and love and logic. I never knew how much I did not know about disciplining a child until last night.
Parents, if you could help me along my journey, how do you discipline? How do you think it makes your child feel? How do you feel about it? How do you know it's working or not working?
No criticism here, we are all just learning and growing on this journey. Thanks for being apart of my learning experience!
