Time Outs Part I

A year ago we started giving our then three year-old daughter, Ellen, time outs. After our son Calvin's birth, she sometimes acted "aggressively" toward him -- showered him with kisses, gave him big hugs, squeezed his cheeks, chased me while I was holding him and tried to hit me, and bit his toe -- that type of thing. Being in mother-bear mode, my nerves were on edge, and I wanted to protect my son and knew I had to help Ellen change her behavior. I didn't want Ellen to get any more spankings (she had been given one out of desperation), so I began separating her from Calvin whenever she started to act aggressively toward him (or when she even hinted at it).

For the time out, I had Ellen sit in her room, and I set a timer for 3 minutes (one minute for every year of her life). She sat in her chair and quietly listened for the "ding." After the time out she happily came out of her room. Often my husband or I would sit with her so she wouldn't feel too alone. After a while I let her decide when she was ready to come out of her room, and that worked fine, too (I think I started doing that when I lost the timer). The time outs appeared to be working. Soon, time outs rarely occurred, and Ellen usually treated Calvin gently -- partly because of the time outs, but also probably because he became more responsive and gave Ellen huge smiles when she treated him kindly.

I soon began wondering if sending her to her room gave her the message that we didn't want to be around her and didn't like her, so I started giving her time outs in the same room I was in. Sometimes I let her choose between going to her room or having the time out in the room with the rest of the family. Usually the time outs worked just wonderfully! They gave her a chance to calm down, and she acted so proud of her accomplishment after she completed the time out.

But, even with the positives that came along with the time outs, I still didn't feel quite right about them, especially because there were times when they most clearly did not work. Two time outs stick out in my mind as disasters, the last of which made me decide to stop giving her time outs.

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