Once children feel understood, so much of the behavior melts away. There are three things a Time-In must include to be effective: Acknowledging Emotion, Setting Limits on Behavior, and Repair/Redirection.Īcknowledging how your child feels helps to diffuse their inappropriate behavior. The big difference from a time-out is that in a time-in rather than leaving the child alone, the caregiver sits with the child and helps co-regulate big emotions and helps to guide the repair of the situation. Let’s see if we can take turns with the toy – I can set a timer (This begins to repair the social situation, building the foundation for empathy and social repair).” Remember, we cannot use our hands to show our frustration. What are some ways we can show our frustration? (Say it aloud, tell me, stomp your feet like a dinosaur). “Wow, did you feel really frustrated when your friend grabbed the toy? (Help your child name and notice the emotion).

Then you help your child work through some big feelings and repair the situation. You approach your child and remind them it is not okay to use their hands when they are upset, you remove your child from the situation and ask your child to sit with you. The friend grabs it back again and your child pushes the friend over. Here is a typical scenario: Your child is playing with a friend and the friend grabs away the toy your child was playing with. Instead of leaving your child alone with their very big and hard-to-control emotions, you sit with them and scaffold self-regulation, while at the same time reinforcing limits. The time-in is the positive/gentle parenting answer to time-out. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Positive Discipline: What is a Time-In? Time-outs in the traditional sense are not recommended as an effective way to discipline or as a way to help your child to develop better regulation skills. Instead, children learn to stuff impulses and emotions deep inside in order to fit into a rigid set of rules. Unfortunately, time-outs don’t often accomplish those objectives long-term. We all want children to learn limits and understand that certain behaviors are not acceptable, and we also want children to learn to regulate their emotions and ‘calm down.’ At best, we miss out on a chance to build emotion-regulation skills, and at worst, we set the stage for later emotional dysregulation and behavior problems. However, consistently leaving children to figure out what they did wrong and not acknowledging their very real emotions can have unintended consequences. Parents have the best intentions using these strategies - they want to teach their children that their behaviors are unacceptable and they don’t want to use harsher punishment. Parents often think that it is best to ignore their children while they are in time-out, so they do not accidentally reinforce bad behavior by giving their children any attention. Most simply put, a child does something they shouldn’t - hit, push, kick, or scream and the parent sends their child to the time-out chair or to their room to “think about what they did” and to “calm down.”

The classic time-out is used as a punishment or at best, negative-reinforcement. Disciplining Your Child: What is a Time-Out? Is there another way? Introducing the Feeling-Break - the best way to set limits on your child’s behavior while still acknowledging their emotions. There is also some scientific evidence that time-outs can be effective in certain situations when time-ins are not. time-outs, what is the best way to discipline your child? Time-In is the preferred method of discipline for positive parenting proponents, but sometimes children resist time-ins.

Take time out upsetter