The next time Joshua leaves his action figures all over the den or Jennifer has a tantrum at the grocery store, don’t put the child in timeout.
Use a time-in.
Coined by parent educator Jean Illsley Clarke, the twist of phrase represents a spin on the parent’s role, as well. Time-in, she says, isn’t meant to be a panacea. It’s offered as a tool for parents to use in redirecting their children’s misbehavior and their own responses.
“It’s the first book I’ve ever written because I was mad,” said Clarke in a telephone interview from her Minneapolis home. “I got so angry at the way people were abusing timeout, I had to do something.”
Her book, “Time-In, When Time-out Doesn’t Work”(Parenting Press Inc., $10), is trim enough to read between a toddler’s tantrums.
The problem with timeout, Clarke said, is that it has been overused and misused.
Never intended to be a punishment, she said, timeout is a strategy for giving a child time and space to calm down and think about what he needs to do or how he can participate in the teaching that is to follow.
Parents who wanted to stop tantrums and misbehavior without spanking or screaming became enthusiastic converts to the timeout method.
But, Clarke said, if a parent finds himself using timeouts several times a day without noticeable effect, he’s probably ready for time-in. Time-in shows adults how to engage the child and find out why she’s misbehaving.
The guide is divided into four alliterative sections: Ask, Act, Attend and Amend. The method is aimed at children ages 1 to 12, although children under 3 can’t be expected to fully respond to questions (Ask), or to benefit from making amends, Clarke said, since empathy doesn’t appear much before that age.
Time-in can also be used to reinforce positive behavior. And the four stages can be used in any order the situation requires.
Here is a brief overview of the stages, with examples and tips for parents:
– ASK
When you see inappropriate behavior, ask yourself what lesson the child needs to learn. If you can ask a question that will teach the child the lesson, ask it.
Ask only questions the child can answer, and only as many as needed. Don’t ask questions you obviously know the answer to, such as, “Who tracked in the mud?” The child will suspect a trick. And don’t turn an order into a question by ending it with “OK?” unless you’re really offering the child the option of not picking up her toys.
Example: Anna, 7, left her coat on the floor for the umpteenth time. Mother sat down, calmed herself, and in a clear, firm, pleasant voice, asked, “Anna, do you know where Daddy’s coat belongs? . . . Right, in the closet. Where does Luke’s coat belong? . . . Right, on the peg.” Mom grinned and asked, “Can you guess what question I’m going to ask next?” Anna grinned back and hung up her coat. Mom gave her a big hug. The discipline lesson: Hang up your coat.
– ACT
When a child is headed for or threatening physical danger, act first, then talk. Sometimes the action needs to be placing the child in timeout before you can teach the needed lesson with asking, attending or amending. Act when asking hasn’t worked. Action can prevent an outbreak of misbehavior. Sometimes an action just seems like the right thing to do, such as modeling appropriate behavior.
Example: Dad noticed that the 9- to 12-year-olds playing basketball were not challenging a player who was cheating. Suddenly Dad was part of the game, dribbling, shooting baskets and passing. Just as suddenly he stood still, held the ball to his chest, and said, “In this yard everyone plays by the rules.” He tossed the ball to the one who had been cheating, grinned and left. Dad directed attention to the cheating without a lecture or shaming. Discipline lesson: Play by the rules.
– ATTEND
This word has so many meanings that it may be the most versatile of time-in’s tools.
It means both “paying attention to the immediate situation and, in the larger picture, of teaching children about values and responsibility,” Clarke said.
It also means physically attending to injured children and broken objects. Sometimes, Clarke said, you must attend to the environment to help avoid further problems. Indeed, attending is the only way a parent can decide whether the next step is to ask, act or amend.
Examples: Mom and her friend were chatting. When toddler Kendall’s Cheerios were gone, she used a demanding grunt to get Mom’s attention. Mom said, “Your Cheerios are gone. I’ll get you some more, OK?” and went to the kitchen. Kendall screamed. Mom attended to her own behavior. She replaced “OK?” at the end of her statement with “Wait.” Eventually Kendall learned to wait. Discipline lesson for children: Delayed gratification. Discipline lesson for adults: Tell young children what they need to do instead of asking their permission.
It seemed to Dad that his children–6, 9 and 10–were breaking the rules more often. He called them together and asked them what was going on. They replied that there were too many rules to remember, the rules changed too often, and that he didn’t follow them either.
Together they chose the six most important rules. Discipline lesson for parents: Rules must be reasonable, known, understood and applicable to all in the family.
– AMENDS
This part of the strategy will delight parents who have wondered how to make lessons really sink in and rebuild connections between children without shaming a child who has injured or offended another.
Making amends, Clarke says, actually builds self-esteem and social and problem-solving skills while working to right the wrong.
Clarke cautioned, however, that you can’t make amends for everything; save it for serious misbehaviors. “What you invite a child to make amends for depends on what you decide is important–and then only if you have the time, energy and patience to carry through.”
Amends should:
Represent an effort on the part of the culprit.
Help her become a better person. For example, breaking one of her own toys is not an appropriate amendment for breaking one of another child’s.
Support family values.
Be related to the problem.
Be acceptable to the victim.
The most important use of amends, Clarke said, is to make amends to your own child when you have wronged her.
“That the child learns the steps of amends may not be as important as the family habit — the concept that I live in a family where, if people do something wrong, they attempt to make it right. If kids get that concept, then as their cognition develops, they will be much more adept at figuring out options of what to do,” she says.
While timeout loses effectiveness as a child ages, there’s no reason time-in can’t be used right through the teenage years as an alternative or in addition to grounding, the teen version of timeout.
