#Time out punishment how to

Look, I know this is difficult for a lot of parents to contemplate or even believe. “All behavior,” Hatfield said, “is communication.” Punishment in any form is harmful, because “it takes the core need of the child… and uses it as a bargaining chip.”

#Time out punishment how to

Or maybe they just don’t know how to process whatever emotion they’re feeling. Maybe they are hungry or tired maybe they are overstimulated or overwhelmed maybe they need a hug.

They don’t do things to be bad they do things because those things are age-appropriate, or because they’re still learning, or because they’re not getting some basic need met. Often, the child is made to stay “in timeout,” even if it requires restraint, and is ignored for the duration.Īll punishments are ineffective, Hatfield went on to say, because the vast majority of kids don’t misbehave they behave. Skinner, timeouts are a form of light punishment in which a child is placed in a certain spot for a set period of time. READ MORE: How to navigate the Santa myth We’d all thought that spanking was the big no-no turns out we were setting the bar very low.

I glanced around the room at the other parents, all of whom shared similar looks of shock on their faces. We’ve been giving our kid timeouts for years. Not 15 minutes into the eight-hour class, certified parenting instructor Linda Hatfield, who runs a Southern California program called Parenting from the Heart, explained that decades of neuroscience and social research have shown that timeouts and other methods of punishment are not only ineffective in steering the behavior of children but outright damaging.īut… but… but… I thought.