The importance of time out

Okay, I admit it. That title is a con job. It suggests that I'm a fan of using 'time out' as a disciplinary strategy for children. I'm not- though in the interests of full disclosure I admit I used it myself 25 years or so ago, when it first became popular and I was a stressed-out working mum looking for answers.

'Time out' is what the experts used to tell us to use when kids pushed us past the point of no return, when they didn't respond to discipline, when we'd lost our rag with them, when we wanted to force them to stop and think and cool off. I suspect that those experts were subtly trying to tell us that there was an alternative to spanking.

And truly, time out is better than hitting your child. It's way, way better than losing the plot and shaking a baby. It's a million miles better than escalating physical punishment to the point where a child ends up in hospital. Or dead.

Let's not forget that.

Though perhaps we've been sending the wrong person to time out all these years. We're the adults; we have a hope of sorting out our feelings if we give ourselves a time out. A child who's sent to time out- well, they just don't have the experience yet to do that.

In the punitive days, we maybe called it the Naughty Step or the Naughty Corner; I'm not a big fan of that word 'naughty', either. It's awfully easy to label children's reactions to their inconvenient feelings as naughtiness. (Inconvenient feelings for us, that is. For the children themselves, they're probably inevitable feelings.)

That's really a power play. It's a cheap shot, getting your power kick by controlling a child with labels. If you need to feel powerful over a child, if you can't respect their humanity, you're reading the wrong blog. This blog is about respecting the children in our care.

(No, I'm not saying you have to strike the word 'naughty' from your vocabulary. Just be careful to label the behaviour, not the child, if you must use it.)

Perhaps we tried to sweeten 'time out' by labelling it the Quiet Space, or the Thinking Chair- but whatever we named that 'time out' strategy, we were making a point of letting that child know that right now, we didn't want their company. There was something wrong with them. They were Too Hard.

Time out was, essentially, the barbed wire fence at the edge of our unconditional love. Behave like that, and I put you outside the fence.

It's a bit of a dinosaur now, 'time out'. These days many of us recognise that there's something a little dodgy about isolating a child in a moment of anger (ours or theirs). These days many of us realise that it's more constructive to interact with an out-of-control child and acknowledge their emotions, if we want the solution to be more than a momentary Band-Aid. (You can read about some of my own strategies with out-of-control children here, and here. Or you can just go to my behaviour management page for all the relevant links.)

These days, I'd much rather put myself in 'time out' than a child. It's one thing to put yourself outside the barbed wire fence when your emotions are out of control; that's a considered decision by an adult, and often a wise decision. It's another thing entirely to put a child out in no-man's land with their big emotions, when they don't have the knowledge and experience to analyse what's going on. That teaches children one of two things- to stuff their big emotions away, or to lose trust in unconditional love.

I'll whack a label on my own forehead any day- angry, out of control, unacceptable, inappropriate- and go away till I've calmed down. But what can a child do with a label like that, whacked on their forehead by an adult?

They can accept it, I guess. I'm unacceptable. I'm inconvenient. 

What, you expect them to distinguish between themselves, and the emotion, and the behaviour that came out of the emotion? How are they going to make those sophisticated distinctions out there on the other side of the fence all by themselves? That's what leads to the stuffing-down of feelings. And stuffed-down feelings are either going to explode one day- inconveniently, inappropriately- or they're going to make that child ill.

Or they can reject the label. You don't understand. You don't care how I feel. Instead of calming down, that child will be angrier, sadder, more frustrated. You'll see that a lot in older children, when you punish them and put them outside the barbed wire. That child will hesitate to share feelings next time. That child withdraws, ceases to trust, self-medicates.

No, I'm not a fan of time out, unless it's the adult taking the break. When we start talking about adults and time out, it does become important.

It's easy for me sitting here blogging, with my own child all grown up now and the children in my care handed back at the end of the day. It's easy for me to get a perspective on things- parenting, teaching, caregiving- to weigh and balance approaches, to analyse what might work best in a situation.

It's NOT easy for you.

You're in a whirlwind out there. You've got a million things competing for your attention, a million stresses on your shoulders. Maybe you're bearing the feelings and problems of a whole household as well as your own, and trying to keep your career or job flourishing as well. There's that mortgage hanging over your head, or the rent... How on earth do you do it? How do you stay rational?

You can't, unless you're giving yourself time out.

Yes, time out for the adults is terribly important when you lose your temper, but that's the Band-Aid solution. That's not the 'time out' I mean.

Real solutions come from calm reflection. Real solutions come from considering your problems without a two-year-old tugging your skirt and a 14-year-old walking out the door with her breasts hanging out of her halter top and a partner loading you with their work concerns while you're trying to cook dinner and then the twins start screaming over who gets first go on the PlayStation and when on earth are you going to finish that presentation for work?

Real solutions come from planned time out for adults.

Prioritise it.

And then use it wisely. Sibling rivalry will not be solved by a fourth glass of wine, or a weekend away where you don't give the kids a second thought because this is your time.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have your own down time- not at all!- but the 'time out' I'm talking about is perspective time. Time where you think about the way you can manage problems with your children, without any other pressure.

That sort of time out is important. How can you manage your priorities, so that you get some time out for reflection?

Lessons from The Slap: My child is perfect... or not.

As I wander around the internet reading blogs, advice columns and news articles about bringing up children, I often have cause to stop and cringe. 

Of course, I often have cause to stop in my tracks and say 'AHA!', too.  There is some brilliant parenting advice out there.  But sad to say, there are a lot of dodgy recommendations out there masquerading as good parenting advice. 

I don't mean the sort of 'whack-'em,-silence-'em-and keep-'em-in-line' advice that lacks respect for children as human beings; I scan that, shaking my head, and move on, because some people are just lost and will never see the light.  There's a lot of it on the forums.  I drop in my two cents' worth of rationality, hoping to balance the scales, and move on.

No, I'm talking about the sort of advice that is so fulsomely positive (and I use 'fulsome' with its original definition) that it gives children a false view of the world.  Your child is perfect. Let them follow their desires or you risk stifling their creativity.  Praise everything you can, to boost their self-esteem. That sort of thing.

Poor, confused parents.  Good parenting, like truth, is such a subjective thing. It falls somewhere between 'too much' and 'too little', and nobody will agree on the location of the line.  In fact, people will argue till they're blue in the face about whether the line's over HERE or over THERE. (They can get quite nasty about it, actually.)  Parents who are struggling are not helped by vague, extreme advice.

That's probably why the ABC TV drama 'The Slap', about a 'spoilt' child who is slapped by a non-parental adult at a party, is causing so much debate.

Firecracker kids: walking the right disciplinary line

I don't have a lot of voice today.

I don't have a lot of voice today, because yesterday I decided to spend some time one-to-one with 'Violet'. Violet has her problems. She's a high-energy, LOUD, I'm-over-baby-stuff kid who has been going through a Bolshie stage the whole time I've known her.

Maybe Bolshie is just who she is. It goes with being bright sometimes, and Violet is definitely very clever indeed. She's a wizard at spacial challenges. Her creative work is incredible.

I come into Violet's life frame very sporadically, being a casual worker. Each time I have to re-establish the boundaries with her and work at our relationship, while she tests the fence, and tests the fence, and TESTS the fence of my limits. She does it to all the staff. It's not personal. But as with all children, it's so much easier to deal with difficult behaviours when you have a good relationship with the child.

I'm genuinely fond of Violet; she can be outrageous, but she also radiates an inner light.  If she can harness that energy for good, she will be someone truly outstanding one day. It's not so hard for me to try to build that relationship, because I can see her light despite the Bolshie wrapper. Sometimes just seeing a child's light can be a challenge, I know. I count myself fortunate that I can see that light in Violet; with other difficult kids I've sometimes struggled away in the dark.

Ironically, yesterday Violet was literally testing the fence by climbing it, and had to be manhandled and persuaded away from it before she was over, off and away up the street. Yesterday she used her considerable problem-solving powers to work out that the ladder from the climbing frame could be used to get to the top of the said fence.  Yesterday Violet was a handful.

(Actually, Violet's nearly always a handful.)

She used up my voice, and she used up my energy, but yesterday she also gave me a priceless gift.

Coping with toddlers joyfully

I know, I know. If you've actually GOT a toddler of your own, you're shaking your head with a cynical mouth and saying 'yeah, RIGHT!'

Toddlers can be incredibly trying. I've been reminded of that by the last two weeks. I've been working full-time in a toddlers' room in long day care, and now here it is Saturday and I'm exhausted! Pity the poor mum and dad who don't get weekends away from Toddlerland.

The best I can do is pass on some stories from the last fortnight, to explain why I'm smiling with joy  through my exhaustion, rather than 'shaking my head with a cynical mouth'.

Notes for Early Childhood Educators: Australian Aboriginal inclusion

I went to a wonderful workshop today run by Bev Grant Lipscombe.  It was full of wise advice on how to understand and teach indigenous children.  I'm just going to pop my notes up here in case any of you would like to read them.

Teacher-bashers: the dangers of over-supporting your children

On the very last day that I taught as a full-time secondary teacher, a Year 7 boy waited till everyone else except his two best buddies had left the room, walked up to me and slapped me in the face.  I had given him absolutely no reason to do so; he did it because he could, no doubt to build up his profile to his mates. 

He had no fear of retribution whatsoever.  He knew that if I complained to the principal, he would at worst be sent to the school counsellor- who would then, in the ultimate example of teacher-bashing, call me in and tell me that it was somehow 'my fault' for not understanding this child's motivation and needs.  The child knew it, and I knew it. 

I put that incident down to the universe confirming my decision to leave the secondary system, and walked away.  Ultimately, this school was so afraid of telling parents the truth about their children's faults and problems that it was prepared to allow the children to get away with assault, disguising the truth of the situation in a thick cloak of 'support and understanding'.

I'm not alone in having this sort of experience, as recent statistics on teacher stress (as detailed in today's Sydney Morning Herald) show.  Teachers crushed by expectations  I'm not the only passionate, enthusiastic teacher who has been lost to teaching due to the system's failure to balance the equation of teachers' and students' rights, to protect staff from abuse.

Sadly, blaming the teacher for everything that goes wrong in a classroom is not confined to the school administration; it's become a blood sport amongst parents seeking easy, comfortable answers to their child's problems.  I have been insulted, ridiculed and verbally attacked, both face-to-face and online, by everyone from acquaintances to total strangers- sometimes for merely being a teacher, and sometimes for suggesting uncomfortable answers which are, in my view, better answers.

But what effect does this sort of vicious attitude to teachers have on the children?

Smacking: let's stop pretending!

If you read current child-rearing literature and listen to the experts, you'll know that good parents don't smack their kids. Yet if you talk for long enough to almost any parent, you'll know that theory and practice are WORLDS apart on this issue. Nearly every parent has lost their cool at some stage and smacked their child. I did; my mother did. You probably have too.  Plenty of mums and dads still use it as a regular disciplinary device- they're just not talking about it.

To have a rational public discussion about smacking which considers any positives as well as the negatives is considered taboo- smacking is politically incorrect, and that's that. This has created a quiet subculture which really, really worries me. If we're still doing it, we need to bring it out in the open. So let's have that discussion right now; it's about time.