A few days ago, in a True You! Short Discussion, I talked about the fact that hitting and spanking our kids doesn’t work; it’s not supported by research in any situation or culture across the world. It doesn’t work. So, what does? Well, I said that I would talk a bit about how to use the Time Out to help manage our kids’ negative behaviors. Keep in mind that Time Outs are a part of a larger program of discipline and that there are many healthy approaches to child discipline. But Time Outs tend to work with most behavior management approaches.
Parental Control
First, I want to talk a bit about a topic that is an important part of my doctoral research and is something I’ve helped parents understand in over 20 years of work with parents who need solutions to their children’s behaviors. The topic is "control." Most parents are well-intentioned. We aren’t abusive or neglectful; rather, we want to very best for our kids. And sometimes we want the very best so much that we get too involved in our kid’s business. We start doing things for them that they are very capable of doing for themselves because we want to be sure that they succeed; we want to form a base on which they can thrive and eventually launch into adulthood.
So we build a formidable launching pad for our kids, designed exactly to our very own specifications. Then we put huge walls around it, add three layers of offensive weaponry to keep out anything that we have deemed to be bad for them, then we plop them in the middle of this launching pad and tell them to thrive. I know this world is insane. As the father of a 12-year-old this world scares the hell out of me. I’m nervous about coordinating her launch into adulthood and it’s tempting to hover over her, making sure she does everything I think she should do to ensure her success.
But when we overcontrol our kids, when we do everything we can do to minimize their discomfort and their failures; when we make sure they’re warm, that they don’t get their feet wet in the rain that they pass that big test, that they properly manage their friendships; when we use guilt or shame to redirect their behavior, when we hit or spank then, we are often satisfying our need to feel like we’re actively parenting our kids; that we are ensuring their success in this crazy world. When we impose our will on our kids, what we are really doing is removing our child’s sense of agency over their environment; we are removing their sense of control. We are taking away from them the opportunity to learn that there is a consequence for everything they do.
Wouldn’t it be great if our 7-year-old would wake up in the morning, open up the door and feel the cool air, and think, “it’s cold outside today; it’s going to uncomfortable waiting for the school bus if I don’t wear a long sleeve shirt and put on a jacket?” Instead, what do many parents do? They say, “Good morning, it’s cold today; make sure you wear dress warm; that long sleeve shirt we bought the other day would be perfect for today!” Why do we think we have to inform them of this? It’s well-intentioned; but it prevents your child from using a skill that they are very capable of using; and in so doing, it gives them a powerful sense of pride; a sense of control of their environment.
When our children make good decisions on their own it instills in them a sense of independence, confidence, and control. Independent problem solving is an essential skill that kids need to successfully launch into adulthood. I’m not suggesting that parents give up authority or relinquish their responsibilities as parents—there is a huge difference between being in control and being controlling. But what happens with many parents is that they recognize that if we let our kids make their own, developmentally appropriate decisions, that they will, at first, make decisions that result in their discomfort. We know that our kids will be cold at the bus stop. We suspect that they will fail a test. We are afraid that they will get into trouble at school. We are afraid that the natural consequence of their behavior will be far too intolerable for our kids, so we shield them from it.
But what we are really doing is shielding ourselves from the discomfort of knowing that our children made a mistake and are now suffering a consequence of that mistake. And as we actively control and direct them toward their mistake-free existence, we are removing from their repertoire a sense that they can manage their world, and that they can correctly assess the situation and make a decision. That small act instills in them a lifelong sense of confidence. It gives them problem-solving skills. It gives them the practice needed to plan, to think for themselves, and to not be followers. It increases their self-esteem and protects against anxiety and depression. When we stop imposing our values, our beliefs, our will on our kids they learn to think for themselves. When we stop controlling our kids by hitting or spanking, by using guilt, or shame, or even by saying, “do it because I told you to!” we are turning our kids into obedient, anxious kids whose only motivation to do well in life is to avoid getting in trouble. Let me tell you, kids who do things because they were told to do them (but don’t really understand why they are doing it) end up doing the opposite. And they end up with low self-esteem, anxiety, and poor ability to make decisions. And they end up with a driving sense of obedience to authority.
The Time Out
The practice of the Time Out gained steam back in the 1960s as research began to show that corporal punished was detrimental to kids. So, something else was needed that would help parents control their children's behavior. This is an important point: helping them control their own behavior! The time out offered a fundamental shift toward the idea that we don’t need to be authoritarian dictators with our kids. Yes, they need structure. Yes, they need to know that parents are in charge. They need that sense of security; it’s really important.
But, it’s also important that we teach our kids that they can contribute to the process of controlling their behavior. It’s true that our 3-and 4-year-olds don’t have a whole lot to offer in the way of self-control; they aren’t very good at calming themselves down without our help. So, we have to teach them how to do that. But they can very easily be taught how to calm themselves down, or at least how to contribute to that process. We need to stop accepting too much responsibility for managing our kids. When we allow our kids to figure things out on their own, to learn from their mistakes; when we stop figure everything out for them and stop solving their problems, they are much more likely to repeat what they learned in the future. And in the process, they are developing a sense of pride and self-worth, and a sense of control and mastery over their environment. The Time Out provides a convenient vehicle for teaching our kids to use the skills that they are capable of using while removing ourselves from the process in a developmentally appropriate way.
Time out is Not a punishment
Some researchers conceptualize the Time Out as a punishment. In some ways it is. It does happen as a result of a negative behavior that the child has been told not to do. But the problem with using the term punishment is that the term is associated with parental anger, shame, and harsh words. It’s associated with bad things. Instead, we need to reframe it. We need to let our kids know that a time out is a good thing.
Here’s why it’s a good thing: when we experience an emotion, like anger, anxiety, sadness, happiness, what we are really experiencing is chemicals in the body. We’re experiencing an influx of hormones and neurotransmitters. So, when those chemicals get released from the various systems of our body, we experience the sensation that we humans call emotion. Dopamine is associated with reward; cortisol with anxiety; cortisol and adrenaline with anger; then there’s serotonin, norepinephrine, epinephrine.
Sometimes, when the levels of those chemicals get too high, we kind of lose control. we get flooded. We have excess anger or excess anxiety. We lose the ability to think and communicate clearly. That’s science; it’s just the way the body works. And when we get flooded with these excess emotions it’s hard to calm them back down. You’ve all experienced it: Some guy cuts you off on the highway and you almost wrap your car around a telephone pole. It takes a while to get that shaky, nauseous feeling to go away. In fact, it takes about 15 minutes for excess chemicals to get reabsorbed and to get back to a baseline emotion that makes it much easier to think and communicate clearly.
Kids are no different. When their chemicals go haywire—when they get too excited, when they don’t get what they want, when they tantrum, when they throw things, when they yell and scream; when their chemicals get to flooded levels and they experience high levels of anger, they don’t have the ability to calm themselves down. They need our help. They don’t need to be punished, and they certainly don’t need to be spanked. That’s only going to make their emotions even bigger! Instead, (and this is where I think a bit differently than some about time outs) the purpose of a time out is to remove the child from whatever was overstimulating. It’s to get him out of the environment; out of the influence of whatever upset him. That’s a skill that we adults use. When someone is really annoying us or making us anxious, we don’t stick around do we? We shouldn’t. And neither should our kids. But they don’t know that. So they just sort of let whatever upset them continue to upset them until they’re completely insane; and so are we, as parents. So, what can we do to help our kids calm down? We remove them from the situation that is causing the emotional flooding,
