00:40 - Make sure time-outs are in no way damaging our child
01:21 - Choose a place where there’s not a lot of activity going on
02:32 - Make them understand why they are in time-out
02:59 - What if time-out isn’t really a big deal anymore?
04:32 - Remind them of good actions, not the bad ones
Hey, guys. Harper Jones here with Bow-Tiger and you're watching Saturdays with Harper. And today we're going to talk about what to do when time-out just doesn't work for your toddler. Now, if you have one of those super smart toddlers that seem to kind of overcome your typical time-out, like my child did, you really find it to be quite a very frustrating task to put your child in time-out or to make them understand that they're in trouble for something that they've done or with the way they've behaved towards somebody, etc. So how exactly do we put our kids in time-out to make it a valuable lesson?
We want to make sure, of course, that our time-outs are in no way damaging our child physically, psychologically, anything like that. So make sure that you avoid spanking. Spanking is not a good idea. And you want to make sure that you are not psychologically sort of messing with their head when you're putting them in a time-out or when they're in trouble for something that they've done. It needs to be more of an educating experience as to the effect of they've done something wrong, now this is the consequence to what they did wrong, so don't do it in the future. That's the idea that we want to provide. Something's been done. This is what your consequence is, don't do it in the future. But how do we get there?
The first thing is, now as a new...when I was a new mom with a small toddler, now she's been a toddler for a little while now, so I've had some experience in it. I did notice that I'd immediately say, "time-out" and I'd take her little chair and I'd put her chair sort of in a room in the corner. Well the problem is, is I'd leave the room and then my daughter, who had all of a two minute time-out, would sit there and start staring around the room, talking to her teddy bears, whatever she wanted to do. So the one thing you want to do, if you are going to attempt a time-out, is don't do it in their room and don't do it in a room where there's a lot of social activity going on. So don't put them in the living room if you're going to be in the living room. Kitchen's not a good idea, just because there's a lot they can get into. Put them separate, maybe even like a hallway.
Put them somewhere where there's not a lot of activity going on, so that when you sit them down, and you sit them down in the chair and tell them that they have a two minute or five minute time-out and you explain to them why they're in the time-out. This is very important. Make sure that you explain to them what they did was wrong and how they can fix it in the future and how they can make sure not to do it. But because they did it, this is the consequence of the bad action that they showed. They have to sit here in a time-out.
Make sure that they understand why they're there first of all. Do not provide them a lot of activity while they're in the time-out, because this is a time for thinking about what they've done and let them know in a very easy manner that you were disappointed. Don't ever call them bad or horrible or a terrible thing that they've done, anything like that. But you can tell them that their actions were disappointing. Let them know that not them, but their actions were disappointing and you hope not to see it in the future.
It's very important to explain to a toddler why they're in a time-out, so that they understand. Now, here's the next problem that I ran into. My daughter, who I was putting in time-outs, well she liked to count and when we first started doing this time-out thing, maybe she could only count to 20. But she would count to 20 and she'd count to 20 over and over and over and over again. Until her time-out was done and the problem is she loves counting, so the time-out wasn't really a big deal.
If you run across this problem, you need to kind of just say, "forget it" to time-outs and you need to find another way, another consequence to bad actions besides a time-out. One that I found to work very beneficially for me, for my daughter, was taking away a toy. Taking away one of the toys that were her favorite at the time or that she really specialized in her room, really, really helped her to understand that bad actions have consequences and the consequences are something that you enjoy, something that you like will no longer be available. So I do it with her stuffed animals and her toys and I didn't take them away forever, but they were taken away and they were put up somewhere that was kind of reminding to her almost that they're there and they were not given back to her until the next day. So she had a full day of thinking about, "well how can I get this toy back?" And I continue to remind her that good actions, being nice to people, saying please, thank you, just all of the things that I want her to do to be a great, good, wonderful, little girl, I kind of remind her of those things throughout the 24 hours before getting the toy back.
And then, when I gave the toy back or if you guys try this, when you give the toy back, again go over good actions. Don't remind them of their bad actions, but go over the proper way to handle situations and the good actions that they should show. Always make sure to sort of empower positivity with your child. You don't want to be negative with your child. I understand that at sometimes it's necessary or there's just no other option, but at our utmost, we want to try to provide positive encouragement to our child. We want to try to show them the good in the world, not the bad.
So, try that out if the time-outs don't work. If that doesn't even work, I do have some other ideas for you guys and you can feel free to message me. If it doesn't work, go ahead and send me a message and we'll work on some other ideas for time-outs for the toddlers. So again, this is Saturdays with Harper and if you guys are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube, please also be sure to check out our blog on bow-tiger.com. We'll see you next week, guys. Thanks.
