The answer I’m finding is a multi-pronged approach to discipline – not trying to make one thing the answer. Sometimes when tempers flare, doing a sensory activity helps us calm down so we can find a solution. However, when I’ve tried to force the calm-down time to happen it usually just adds fuel to the fire. The more often my kids have seen me do this, the more they have become willing to take their own calm-down time-outs. Taking my own time-out, however, is an extremely effective way for me to stop a Mama Tantrum. When he feels disconnected from me he is more likely to act out in angry and unhelpful ways.
(He’s told me as much.) This breach in our relationship then takes time to heal. It makes at least one of my children feel scared and unwanted. This means that when instead of feeling calm I feel more and more angry when I’m unable to get things under control. And, at least with one of my kids, that child will not stay in that spot separated from me unless forced to. I feel like an idiot trying to physically make my child stay in that spot. When Time Out means a prescribed number of minutes and a child sitting in a specific spot it tends to lead to powers struggles. This kind of calm-down and chill-out time can help, but if I try to make it a One Size Fits All consequence it causes fury.
We all have times when we need a break to collect ourselves and calm down. What I’ve learned about Time Out in Our Family: With my middle child, I finally came to a realization that between his personality and mine, trying to enforce this type of time-out was likely to end in child abuse, so I started searching for other ways to discipline. However, most often it has only been the spark to yet another power struggle. It’s been mildly effective at times – it’s taught me about where I have a hard time enforcing consistent rules and it’s helped us ratchet down the chaos sometimes when every day was feeling like a battle. What I mean above is that we’ve tried a number of variations on the more formalized time-out as consequence, sitting in one spot for a certain period of time. Time-out means so many different things to so many different people. Over the years I’ve tried variations on time-out with my kids.ġ, 2, 3 – Ok, now you have to sit for 3 minutes The episode I just mentioned is just one of our experiments with using time-out. I can still hear him crying behind me as I try to regain my calm so I can start over. I storm away into my room, out through the back door and into the backyard. Thankfully the final shred of my mothering sanity wins and I jerk myself away from the door unleashing the screaming little boy from his “time-out”. I am standing at the kids bedroom door locked in a physical struggle to hold the door closed while my mind is struggling to keep me from slamming the door open into the shrieking child behind it. By Alissa Marquess Zorn on Janu(updated February 3, 2022)
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