Where do you send your child for a time-out?
Sandy's post earlier today about returning to the time-out struck a chord with me as we are in time-out central these days. The arrival of a new baby sister coupled with the approaching of his third birthday have finally sent angelic Nate over to the dark side. Control issues are now a daily battle and I finally understand what my friends were talking about. The Terrible Twos didn't escape us, they were just delayed on the way to our house.So naturally, we have turned to the time-out. Whenever Nate has trouble coping with "The Rules" we send him for some alone time until he can get it together. The mother of all control issues seems to revolve around sleep.
"NO! It's NOT bedtime!"
"I don't WANT a nap!"
"Can you read me one more story?" (Answering "No" equals a meltdown.)
We realized that sending him to his room for time-outs was making him have negative feelings about his room. Our house is teeny and there aren't that many places that would seem like punishment, so we've turned to "The Naughty Stair," our take on Supernanny's "Naughty Chair." I'm always amazed that he doesn't try to get off it. To me it's proof that kids sometimes need to chill out on their own until they can regain control of their emotions. (Heck, even I need a time-out sometimes -- though it's downright impossible with a three-year-old and a newborn.)
The time-out method seems to be working for us now that we've found a perfectly dull place for him to sit through it. Nate seems to notice it's value as well. The other day, my husband and I were being somewhat snippy with each other. Nate turned to us and said sternly, "Stop that you two or you're gonna hafta sit on the Naughty Stair!"
Do time-outs work for you? Where do you send your child for time-outs?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
SKL 12-03-2007 @ 6:12PM
I have a Bumbo-type seat (different brand though, not the recalled one) that I received, but my kids are too big to need it. I face it toward the wall and it's the "naughty chair." I have only used it once so far, though. Have used "bed" a few times because it seems to work better. She still doesn't hate her bed, so far.
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Tom A 12-21-2007 @ 10:44AM
don't worry about them hatingthe bed. Kids are really fairly indestructable in the psyche if we do not teach them to be otherwise by our actions.
Point in case, I had to spank my step daughter once (only). She was six and the eat belt thing became a power issue. Since it involved her safety, I pulled over and "spanked" he. One tap. She screamed like she had just fallen into Hell itself. 9 years later, she knows I mean what I say and that makes her feel secure. She has only a fond memory of that spanking. Her pain did not come from the light love tap, it came from changing her paradigm. For more on spanking and discipline in general, check out "Focus on the Family" web site.
Ethel 12-03-2007 @ 6:48PM
We have a wing back chair that is the time out chair, used to be the little dog's favorite but now he stays out of it. The chair is mostly for the boys to cool down and collect themselves more then anything. Sometimes my oldest even tells me "I need a time out."
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Jenny 12-03-2007 @ 7:53PM
We sit the kids on the stairs too, because our stairs face the front door and there is not a lot to look at. But we just call it "time out," not the "naughty stair."
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Melissa 12-03-2007 @ 8:18PM
Pack n' play. I thought is was useless for a baby, but as a time out place, it works well.
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Heather 12-03-2007 @ 8:41PM
We have a couple of "naughty points" in our house. (We have 2 kids). Our house is small as well but I made a 2 signs that hang in our house at all times a green naughty point and a red one. One goes to one and the other goes to the other. One is in our hall way the other is in the kitchen. I had to put them to where they couldn't see eachother, because that just turned into play time. They seem to do ok with it, but I'm not really sure. They just tend to go back to what they were doing before. (They are 3 and 5 yrs old.)
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Holly Sallmon 12-03-2007 @ 8:53PM
straight to the corner....
there's 4 in every room.
Jennifer 12-03-2007 @ 9:18PM
We bought a $3 green plastic chair that we keep in the hall closet. Misbehavior is given a warning that the green chair is about to come out. If it persists, the chair comes out and kiddo goes into it facing the corner. We set a kitchen timer. When the timer goes off they are free to get up. The chair doesn't get put away right away though. It sits out for a few minutes as a reminder just in case they were thinking of returning to their negative behavior. Even our 22 month old sits in it on occasion (usually no more than 1 1/2 to 2 minutes). It works wonders with him as well. These days our three year old daughter is more apt to run down the hallway to her room and close her door 'until she's happy.' She usually will come out a minute later and announce that she feels better. I think training kids to take that time out when they are angry or frustrated is a valuable skill for them to maintain throughout life.
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Jenn 12-03-2007 @ 10:27PM
We have not had to use time-outs with our daughter yet -- distraction and redirection still work for her very well, although I see signs that this won't be working for very long!
My sister has always used time outs with her kids, not so much as a punishment as a way for them to get control again when they are losing it. Her 5 year old now goes to her room -- the point isn't so much for her to be punished, but to get hold of herself and "be happy" again. Her 2 year old puts herself in time out (a spot on the floor at the end of the coffee table) when she feels herself getting frustrated (it's really very funny to hear her mutter "Time out, time out, I need time out" to herself).
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LS 12-04-2007 @ 10:25AM
We have a "frownie" chair - it's one of those little plastic molded chairs that they make for kids for the patio in summer. It's lightweight, and I can move it around the house if I need to. But the thing is, he also uses it for other things, so I have a little yellow pillow that has a smiley face on one side and a frownie face on the other. The smiley stays up as long as he is behaving. Once we need the chair, he is to walk over, *turn over the pillow to the frownie face* and then sit down. The hardest part for him at the moment is staying quiet while he's on there. He tends to keep up a running narration every minute of the day.
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Robert C. Kalajian Jr. 12-05-2007 @ 2:59PM
Generally we sit my son on a chair in the corner of our dining room. We've only just started with time outs and it seems to work.
The problem is we always feel guilty for doing it. He's still very young and doesn't always realize that what he's done is wrong (like pushing over his 8 month old sister)
-Robert
http://binkyfreak.com
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Kristin 12-06-2007 @ 1:12PM
I usually put my son in time out in a chair in the living room, problem is, its in front of the T.V and everything, so maybe thats not as good of a place. I like your take on a neutral place, because I have tried his room, and it has become a negative place for him now too. I am a first time mom of a three year old, so I'm still learning :)
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