If you are a time out veteran...

sunnydays99 · September 2011

I don't belong on this board, but I wanted to ask moms with more experience....

If you did / do time outs with your child - do you have a special time out spot?

DH and I are going to start the 1-2-3 magic soon with our DS and we're unsure of where we should do the timeouts. I don't want him to go to his room b/c I don't want there to be a negative association. I've heard of special time out mats/rugs/chairs, but then what do you do at someone elses house or in public? I'm probably way over thinking this, but thought it'd be great to get some wisdom from experienced moms!!

Thanks!

Brewtowngrl · September 2011

We use his room. It gives him too much attention trying to keep him in a certain spot. He has no negative feelings about his room.

angelakh · September 2011

Brewtowngrl:
We use his room. It gives him too much attention trying to keep him in a certain spot. He has no negative feelings about his room.

This. DD loves her room

monkeyqueen · September 2011

I have a little mat (it's actually a bath mat from Walmart) that I have in my kitchen (close to the timer) for time outs. When we are out and about, I just pick some arbitrary spot and call it time out if the kids are misbehaving.

eta: it was really fun for Natalie to go to the time out spot for the first little while, now it's not.

kmhunt11 · September 2011

Any old mat or spot will work. A friend uses the 3rd step on her stairs. I got a mat on the dollar aisle at Target. If we're out and about I'll say "Do we need to ask Uncle Will (or the waiter, or the lady who works here) where his time out spot is?" Time out in her room is reserved for when it's clear she's misbehaving because she's too tired to make the right choice. At that point I make it clear that she's acting so tired she needs a quiet time. She doesn't need to sleep, but it needs to be quiet. Until recently, those magic words equaled a lovely nap/break for me. Now she just chills out up there and comes out "reset".

Mrs Manners · September 2011

We have a time out chair. In public or at someone's house we use a corner and just have him sit on the floor. We have very few timeout issues in public because usually he's super occupied or interested in what's going on. Now if he's crying or having a tantrum, I will ask him if he needs to go to his room until he can calm down enough to join us again but I don't sent him there for punishment, just to collect himself.

jen5-03 · September 2011

When DD was younger (2ish), she had a lot of meltdowns. She was just overwhelmed with something and completely lost it. For those, I put her in her room. I left the door open and told her she could come out when she calmed down. Sometimes she'd get up and close the door! For more of a punishment, she does timeout sitting on the bottom step. But we've made it clear that timeout can be anywhere and she's even done it sitting in the grass at the park. I think that having a special mat or chair would make it harder to get them to understand that timeout can happen anywhere.

howleyshell · September 2011

We have a chair in the "formal" living room away from all the fun stuff.

When out in public? My kids have had time outs on other people's stair cases, in the aisle at the grocery store, you name it. Once they get the concept you can really do a time out pretty much any place.

I didn't do their rooms because they're on the 2nd floor of the house and it would have taken half the length of the time out just to get them up there.

My vote is some place that's close to where you'll be but not able to see toys, fun, etc. so that it's obviously a serious issue and place.

One of my friends has 2.5 yr old twins. She tells them "nose to the wall" and voila.... instant time out anywhere there's a wall.

libra31 · September 2011

We have the "naughty step" which is the bottom of our staircase. At someone else's house we use their stairs or find a "naughty spot." It really works well. I just have to point toward the stairs for my older 2 now. If they are throwing a massive fit or did something bad then they go to their room. I refuse to listen to crying/screaming on the step. I've even put my 18mo there a few times. He won't stay but after watching his brother and sister I know he gets it!

AgrippaRidesAgain · September 2011

When he was that young, it was just any corner we could find. It worked well b/c then we could do that in public.

As he got closer to 3, I had to move it to his room. He drew too much energy from being able to see me, and the screaming escalated. I don't really have to do them in public that much, but I usually drag him to the car if necessary.

jsugrin · September 2011

We he was little it was simply sit on the floor but that became too much attention and around 3 it was too your room. He hates going to to his room and responds well to that. We may also just sit him in a chair.

The thing you have to think about with a "spot" is what do you do when you're at the store, or grandparents house ect and your kids is used to a spot.

Stellar1 · September 2011

We have a time out chair that was made for kids. We pretty much keep it in the same spot in our house. We just have her sit in it for 1-2 minutes. We don't really ever need to put her in time out when we are not at home :-)

ecoppins · September 2011

We do a couple of different things depending on behavior. In general we are a 1-2-3 family. It works better for me than it does for dh, bc dh will do it when he can't/won't enforce it. I ALWAYS enforce at three so it always works.

If it is something minor, we do what we call taking a breather. Dd gets taken away from whatever situation and takes a few deep breaths or counts to ten. We do it on a stair in the playroom or the helper chair in the kitchen or the stoop outside or really anywhere.

If dd isn't playing/acting nicely (a continued poor behavior) or having a fit, dd is sent to her room until she can play nicely or has calmed down and comes out when she thinks she is ready. (If I disagree I send her back in.) If the behavior was really excessive then she is to stay in there till mommy or daddy comes and gets her. That is usually followed by a discussion of what was unacceptable and how to handle the situation after she is calm.

In public, we act like ladies or we go home.

jlw2505 · September 2011

It depends, when we first started them we typically used a step that went up to our family room. Now that the girls are a bit older, we typically send them to their rooms. I don't look at time-outs as punishment - more as a cool down period and a time where they have no interaction with anyone. Using the room when they are really young or not used to time outs to me is not a good thing - I have only started doing that more recently. I never want my kids to think of their room as a place they go to when in trouble. I use it now only when we are in the middle of a bad tantrum and I want them out of sight so to speak. My kids will keep a tantrum going for a long time if they have an audience so their room works well to give them the space to chill.

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