How to discipline your child without using time out
Abusing waiting time is not a good idea, do you know how you can discipline without this parenting tool?
There are threats that parents often use: ‘If it doesn’t stop now, you’ll have to go to your room and think.’ Often times, these words are more than enough for a child to start behaving better at a certain point. But this is not always the case and when it happens, these parents have no choice but to comply with the threat of sending their child to their bedroom, to a corner or to another assigned place to make the time-out. Although for some children it may be an effective consequence, for others it is not always helpful and sometimes it is not effective in all situations.
As with negative consequences, the time-out strategy should be used sparingly. If you are always sending your child ‘to think’, it will lose its effectiveness very quickly. Also, this strategy can not always be used. For example, if your child wants to delay bedtime, the waiting time may feel more like a reward than a negative consequence. If you are in a public place and there is nowhere where your child can sit to calm down, you may prefer to opt for different consequences. Below you will find some effective alternatives that can help you.
Index
TIME INSIDE
Instead of ‘time out’ or ‘time out’ , you can work what is known as ‘time in’. This means that you take the break together with your child and it can be effective when your little one needs help solving a problem, calming or keeping his most uncomfortable emotions under control.
For this, you will have to build a relationship and foster communication between you every day, strengthening the team of parents and children instead of facing each other. It doesn’t have to be a long break, just five minutes. The process of taking this break helps the child to process his most uncomfortable emotions in a healthy way.
This involves walking away from the activity when your child seems stressed or overwhelmed. Then spend a few minutes with your child to teach him a calming technique, such as deep breathing. This works well when your child is struggling in the situation they are in.
A CORNER OF COMFORT
Of course, it is not always possible to abandon what is being done to take a break with your child, no matter how much you want to. For times when your child needs to calm down on his own, create a comfortable corner. This space does not have to be large. However, it should include comforting items like soft cushions, books, quiet toys, or art supplies, like colored crayons.
When your child starts to get overstimulated, tell him to go to the comfort corner to calm down. The comfort corner should give your child privacy, but it shouldn’t be isolated. Try the corner of the living room or basement, if that’s where your family hangs out. The purpose of a comfort corner is to teach your child how to regroup and refocus without feeling isolated or rejected. It is intended to be a positive experience and can be a helpful way to prevent your child from committing a major rule violation.
REDIRECTION
If you, for example, your child is jumping on the couch, do not make a scene to send him to the waiting time. Instead, try positive discipline and redirect their behavior by saying something like, ‘Even though you are a good jumper, you could fall and hurt yourself, so if you want to jump, you’d better do it on the ground.’
In this sense, instead of telling him what he cannot do, you are telling him what he can do and this will give him enough motivation to improve his behavior without the need for drama. Giving him a safe and healthy alternative will be able to perceive your order in a much more positive way.
GIVE OPTIONS
The purpose of time-out is to help your child make better decisions, so empower him to actually do so by giving him options to improve the situation. Let him decide between two or three acceptable alternatives to correct the mistake.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.