Some lively discussion has followed this article since I posted about it, and I was inspired to give it a second read after hearing one of the researchers on the radio this morning.
While I agree with the main thrust of the article, I don’t agree that using “time out” is a form of love withdrawal. I recommend it to many of the parents I work with, and they almost universally find it to be helpful in the restoration of peace and loving harmony in their homes. The isolation that is involved in this technique is not meant to be from a parent’s love or affection, but from whatever was overstimulating/reinforcing the child to continue the undesired behavior. For example, children who are disruptive, fighting, tantruming, etc., are often reinforced for their behavior by the attention that it brings, however negative. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Directly reprimanding a child for this serves to reinforce the behavior further. But removing them from that reinforcement communicates that the behavior is not acceptable.
Another example: you are with your child at the check out aisle, and there are many lovely candy bars vying for the child’s attention. The child screams that he/she wants a candy bar, and the more you try to talk the child out of it the more he/she wants it and screams louder. The solution? Remove the child from the store, however inconvenient that is for you. If you end up giving the child a candy bar, you’ve just let them know, “hey, if you scream for long enough, I will give in and you’ll get your Snickers.” It’s not a time out, but is serves the same purpose, which is letting the child know that this behavior is not a good idea by removing them from the situation, and and that it will not get them what they want.
It is of course important to always explain to children why their behavior is unacceptable, why you are responding in this way, how to make better decisions in the future, and that this is part of your job as a parent which you take seriously because of how much you love them. Love withdrawal plays no part in good parenting.
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I suspect that this book addresses an extreme with another extreme. Maybe some people do treat the time out as ‘love withdrawal’ whatever that is, so this guy writes a book to combat that. Now, it’s interpreted in the media that everyone who gives a time out is withdrawing love left and right and if you do it you don’t love your kid, and blah, blah, blah. Honestly, I think the people who read the advice of ‘experts’ are the people who need it the least and we’d all be better off spending the time taken to read these books with our families.
September 23rd, 2009
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