Time Out!

In a story today on 25WEHT , Indiana day care regulations for licensed childcares say no to time out. It's the lesser of two alternatives to curbing poor behaviors. The better alternative is redirection.

Most children don’t need time out. Most children, by age three, know that no means no. Children who don’t know about no are children whose parents need discipline, and they should go along for the ride.

Discipline can be anything – deprivation of sweets or treats, time out, corporal punishment, and verbal reprimands. It’s true that punishment is the least desirable alternative to correcting poor behavior, because it makes everyone unhappy.

And no matter how often parents want to admit it, redirecting behavior might be the desired plan, but as often as not it’s the adult’s behavior that is redirected more than the child’s.

In childcare, where children try on one another’s behaviors, there is always more undesirable behavior than at home where one or two children play more or less peacefully. So separating children is a way of handling combinations of behaviors.

In other words when Harry punches William, and William hits Harry with a chair, and Harry throws a truck at William, putting one child in a chair at the art table is a way of “redirecting.” But what if Harry doesn’t want to sit at the art table? What if Harry just wants to beat up William and make him cry all day?

Time out is not the enemy. Time out is a tool like any other childcare tool. Making it against the law is as ill thought out as taking wine off the market because some people drink too much. Children are not ornaments. They are people. Just like reprimands in an adult’s life, so time out is a necessary component in a child’s life.

Here are some thoughts that might bring time out into focus:

Millie is cracked on the head with a fire truck. But it’s not Bobby’s fault, because he’s working out a problem. There’s no punishment involved because Bobby is a good boy.

Mrs. Excello discovers why Bobby hit Millie; he wanted to. She teaches him words to use instead of fire trucks. Bobby goes off again, but this time, he adds words, “Give me your toy, or I’ll hit you with the fire truck.”

Hell-O Child Care is a great place for kids because nobody has to say, “I’m sorry.”

Last week in a local paper, a state welfare department consultant denounced time-out as a discipline because “children are good and don’t do [bad] things without reason.” He said there should never be punishment. That’s very wishful thinking because there are very poorly behaved children -- just look around -- anywhere you go.

Then ask: do caring parents who pay as much as a house payment for child care really want to know that their well behaved children are in danger because of an ideology that refuses to punish children who repeatedly hurt them? Do we want to think the state backs up the perpetrators with soft words while it denies the child-victim even a corner to get away from pummeling?

Relax. Punishment does exist. In fact, the bigger person can do more than punish; frustrated by “problem solving” which has gone awry he can send the child to the psychologist to be “treated” with “drugs” for the rest of his life. Aren’t we clever; we didn’t even use time out.

More children visit psychologists today than ever before. Is this an accident or a product of a no accountability society that denounces reflection and retreat? The ability to reflection and retreat, by the way, denotes an interior life which children do have. Developing an interior life begins in childhood.

But children will not be reflective nor even sorry if the ideal of today’s child care is anti-teacher and anti-rule. In fact, parents should know that providers are afraid of punishing any child -- even by time out -- because it’s frowned on by welfare consultants who take great delight in bullying providers and directors into submission.

And that’s why child care providers are running for their lives. The turn over in child care is the national disgrace. The few men and women who opt to do this work don’t last, and part of the problem is a lack of support from officials who have a certain agenda.

That agenda rocks our traditional culture which ascribes to the idea that the human character is flawed. But good parents will always teach young children how to amend the natural flaws that make us human and fragile. That training is called social behavior. You hear it in traditional prayer: “forgive us our trespasses.”

That’s what good child care is all about, and that’s what parents should be getting from providers for the sake of the child, and sometimes it means time out. And true, in good places where a real control of children’s behavior matters, time out is rare and therefore even more effective.

Children love limits, and they certainly will ask for time-out when confronted with more than they can handle. They will come to a parent or teacher for help. A discerning adult will understand what the human need is, and they will help even if it means someone takes a ten minute reprieve to get their intrapersonal ducks in a row.