PARENTING PLUS:Punishment can increase emotional trauma
IN RECENT years time-out as a punishment has become synonymous with discipline for younger children. It has been popularised as the Supernanny"naughty step" and has become the punishment of choice for many parents.
In my opinion, using time-out as a punishment can not only be ineffective, but it also has the potential to be emotionally damaging for children.
The premise behind this kind of time-out is that by receiving a negative consequence (having to sit alone on a step for a period of time) immediately after some misbehaviour, a child will associate the two such that they will learn not to misbehave in order to avoid having to sit alone.
As it is normally espoused, it also incorporates ignoring the child, such that they get the additional negative feedback of having attention withdrawn from them for the misbehaviour.
While the underlying theory makes sense (negative consequences after a behaviour can reduce the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated), the practical application of it in time-out is flawed. Most parents who employ punishment time-out use it as a consequence for a myriad of misbehaviours, from hitting to non-compliance and everything in between. This means that from a child's perspective they could be being punished for anything because the time-out is so generically applied.
Also, in practice, parents who put their child in time-out rarely do so without engaging with them in some kind of row or discussion. This is because few children willingly accept time-out (or any punishment) and so invariably they will try to argue their point. Two things can then happen.
Firstly, a child may be trying to plead their case, while a parent tries to ignore them. The parent ends up saying things like, "I don't care, you are in time-out anyway!", "I am not listening to you, you hit your brother and that is an end to it!" or "don't keep rowing with me, you are in time-out and that is it!"
The message a child might pick up from this could, in fact, be one of callous disregard from their parent, who is not prepared to hear their side of a story.
Secondly, as a discussion or row develops (perhaps about the cause of the misbehaviour, perhaps about the severity of the time-out or perhaps about whether a child is even going to accept being in time-out) the parent may end up giving more individual attention to their child, which might be actually reinforcing.
So, as you struggle to bring your five year old to the step or chair, the first few minutes (or more) for the child are ones of intense interaction with you. Indeed, you can get stuck into an intensely negative cycle of interaction as you and your child both feel frustrated with the row that develops. This kind of negativity can set an enduring tone for your ongoing relationship.
For me, however, the truly emotionally traumatising aspect of punishment time-out is the use of the terminology of a "bold" or "naughty" step/chair/cushion/corner or wherever you choose to use. Children quickly learn that bold children get sent to bold chairs.
Once they are repeatedly sent to the "naughty step" they could internalise a sense of being naughty or bold. This may have very damaging consequences for their self-esteem as they could judge themselves negatively as bold or naughty.
Once they believe they are bold, then what is the point in being good? If they know themselves to be bold, can they ever know themselves to be good?
Think about the messages you give your children when you punish them by putting them in time-out on a "bold chair". Are these the messages that you want to give? Or do you actually just want your discipline to guide them away from the bad stuff towards the good stuff?
Taking time-out to calm down from the heat of a row is a good thing, but if you want to discipline your child then there are better ways than punishing them with time-out.