Throwing rocks at birdies? Time in with Daddy
The ultimate time-in
This is the post I have had in my mind since I decided to start this blog. I feel a touch fraudulent writing it at the moment, as this week with my almost three year old has been tough. There has been yelling, anger, a few mindless threats (they always pop out when mama has had way too little sleep), and last night I actually put him in our room and closed the door for a couple of minutes, because I felt so close to losing it altogether…that really served to remind me why I don’t believe in or agree with the concept of time-out. It just severed our connection, and as soon as he came out, he was doing the same sorts of things again. I think he’s on the cusp of something, and it’s tough for all of us.
The concept of time-out comes from the good old behaviourists. You know, Pavlov and his salivating canine and all that. The goodly educational and parenting philosopher Alfie Kohn writes in his book ‘Unconditional Parenting’ that the term ‘time-out’ comes from a study entitled ‘Time-out from positive reinforcement’. In the case of Pavlov’s dog, this is like waiting till after the dog salivated each time the bell rang, and then removing the food that had originally been offered. I believe the study then went on the replace the stimuli with something negative, like a mild electric shock…
How this relates to any sort of worthwhile parenting tool I am not sure. If we’re removing positive reinforcement (a great idea when it comes to empty praise, reward charts and stickers, but not so great if it involves us severing our connection to discourage a behaviour) and replacing it with something nasty, we may, in the short-term at least, coerce our child into obeying our command, but are we actually effecting any lasting change or learning?
This is a really hard thing to tackle as a parent. When I first read about the idea of not punishing, my babe was about 6 months and I thought ‘of course! This makes perfect sense!’, however when it comes to a 2 year old running around screaming, throwing sand all over our bbq dinner and pushing or whacking house guests, it is a whooooollllle lot harder to not snap and threaten, dole out consequences or punishments, or start shouting a lot!
I’ll come back to that in a moment, but I want to move on now to a really useful tool when handling this stuff, a big picture move that can really change the mood. It can also be really annoying as a parent, cause it means you have to stop whatever you’re doing and go for a lock-down with your kid, (not sure how this sits in the child-centered/family-centered sphere) but it certainly shines the spotlight back on you and your little one, on tuning in to each other.
It’s called TIME-IN! I first read about it in a Doctor Sears book, and it has certainly been a big tool for us. It doesn’t always work as well as you’d hope, but then, neither does removing toys, taking away privileges, or isolating kids from the rest of the family (ask me how I know this!). What it also does NOT do is distance child and parent, create anger or ill feeling, or disempower one party.
Brothers sharing a little time-in. More of this please!
For us, time-in involves removing child and parent from a situation where there is innapropriate behaviour on the part of the child, where the child is becoming extremely emotional, or even when the parent feels they are not in control and are in danger of blowing up.
All you do is retreat to a quiet place with your child and, if you both want to, sharing a cuddle, a boob, a quiet chat, a book, some breathing, whatever, to level you out. If you’re out in public, you can also use a sling to do this.
In practice, you might have to sometimes pick up and carry an unwilling, screaming kid out of the room, and sometimes they will rage at you for a bit. But when a child has lost their bundle, or can’t figure out how to play in a gentle way, or how to control their impulses, enforcing a time-in is still a really respectful way to change the situation, regroup and then start over.
On the punishment and reinforcement thing again, we’ve certainly decided from the outset that those methods were not what we wanted to do with our kids. It is so much harder though, not to fall back on those types of methods when things get really hard. Sometimes you just feel like you need to do something, and dammit you’re soooo mad you want to do something to make them understand this is NOT COOOL and NOT ON!
Dante has had this thing about spitting on and off for the last halfyear. I guess because we reacted strongly to it. We tried just about everything to get him to stop, or to only do it in the bath, etc, etc. In the end I said ‘Ok, it’s like this. If you spit, then you are not using my iphone (hahaha) for the rest of the day. Because I don’t share with people who spit, it’s gross.’ And it worked like a treat! I thought ‘hey in moderation, it’s great!’ Except now, he remembers that, and he is in a phase of doing ANYTHING to test our boundaries, so spitting is just one of the favoured tricks. He does it, and nothing will dissuade him, because if he feels I’m being controlling or cranky or unfair or whatever, then he can regain a bit of agency by spitting! Way to go mama, you really set that one up for yourself!
Hello there little baby...
What? Wasn't me, I didn't do anything!
My ultimate time-in, when everything is spinning out of control and it’s all going to the crapper, is to run a bath and all get in. Yes, we often have mama, daddy, and two kids crammed in the bath. It ends up in laughter every time, and brings us back to what’s really important. Each other.
After the tears...read with me Daddy...
Love this.
I always did this without knowing it was a specific technique per se, but just because when dan went nuts, often it was his reaction to something external, like overstimulation, or an invasion of his personal space / autonomy by someone else. He was always very sensitive that way.
My automatic response was always to pick him up and quickly retreat to somewhere quiet, where he could vent his rage and calm his storms in the accepting and holding space of my arms, away from any further breaches.
I read unconditional parenting too, loved it. How i hate the concept that when your child behaves in a way you disapprove of, he has taken away from him – his mother’s love, his entire mother’s person, his freedom, access to his own home.
I believe a child intrinsically wants to learn behaviours that help him a) fit into his world and social group / family, b) preserve his life / being / safety. We found no need to resort to using fear of loss as a motivator, and I’m glad.
Nice post. (As Alfie says, I am allowed to praise you because you are not depending on my unconditional love lol) And yep, the bath is great, although I tend to chuck the kids in it and take some deep breaths by myself for a few minutes (within listening distance, of course).
We have used time in with reasonable success, but here it is only a good approach when both parents are available, because when I am here with all the children, I can’t retreat anywhere with one, without another one wanting to climb all over me, or getting upset if I go to another room and shut the door.
Do you only use it when you’re both around, or is S OK when you’re chilling out with D?