Question regarding <span title="one-minute-per-year-of-age">one-minute-per-year-of-ag...</span> timeouts ?

Question

Should this be applied to serious misbehaviors also? If not, what should be the longest in this case?

Answer 1

Not enough info. How old is the child and what was the misbehavior?

For a serious misbehavior, it appears time out is not effective. I would consider taking away a privelege of some kind.

Answer 2

that&#039;s a good question. we try to stick to the one minute per year, but i can tell when my boys, 3 y/o and 22 m/o, have forgotten the reason why they are in trouble. with my three year old we usually tell him that when he is done crying or throwing a fit that he has 2 after that and he can get out of the corner. but if he does something VERY wrong he stays there a little longer. with our 22 m/o he barely stays there a minute and a half before he has forgotten why he&#039;s there. you just have to be able to read your kids and pay attention. don&#039;t cave to the big eyes and cute smile...haha. just watch how they react after a few moments of being in timeout.

Answer 3

Only if the kid is under 5. It&#039;s shouldn&#039;t be for serious misbehaviors, since it&#039;s meant to be a cooling off period and distraction for a very young child as opposed to a corrective punishment.

Answer 4

IMO... A time out gives both parents and kids a chance to cool off.  When my son acts up, I send him to his room, where he will get really angry and yell and cry and whatnot.  I don&#039;t give him a set amount of time.  I just take a couple minutes to chill myself, then if he doesn&#039;t come out on his own (he usually doesn&#039;t, haha) I will go check on him.  If I peek in and steam is pouring outta his ears, I will remind him that he needs to calm down.  He will usually huff at this, but I just give him a few more minutes, then look in on him.  Once he calms down, I will go talk to him about what just went on.

It&#039;s gotten to the point that he went from seriously having the worst tantrums I&#039;ve ever seen, to where he catches himself and takes deep breaths on his own, without me having to tell him to chill!  I think I even have a lot to learn from his grasp on anger, now!

But yeah...  I don&#039;t think set amount of time is very valuable to little kids that don&#039;t really understand the concept of a minute.  I think its situational, and the point is more for them to understand what they did wrong and to give them a neutral place to chill out.

Answer 5

Personally one minute per year of age is not enough! Yep, a 3 year old is slapping, hitting, and swearing. Uh oh, in the corner for 3 minutes. That&#039;s NOT a bad punishment at all, it&#039;s way too lenient. The least amount of time I would put a kid in timeout for is 10 minutes. When I was 5 I was sent to my room for half an hour for an infraction. Granted that is a bit harsh.

For severe misbehavior, the child would be sent to their room for the remainder of the day, and depending on the age of the kid they would be grounded for at least a week.