How do you do time out?

DS1 (2 1/2) is very strong willed and independent. Needless to say having a new baby in the house is sending him crazy looking for attention. We're trying to ignore the bad and praise the good but it's having mixed results. My parents are staying with us from interstate to give us a much needed and appreciated helping hand, but my dad is insisting DS either needs a smack or to be put in his room for time out. Smacking is not something we want to do and we've heard time out in the bedroom can lead to issues wth going in there for sleep etc... how does everyone else do time out?

We have a "time out" chair... Or sometime called as a reflection chair... In our dining room...

With DD1 we had a naughty spot in the hallway, just outside the toilet door. Boringest place in the house LOL. We only ever did a couple of minutes (back in the day they used to say one minute per year of age...but you wouldn't really start before about 2). It's supposed to be a last resort after distracting/redirecting, physically moving/excluding child within the room that you're in a couple of times first, etc... ie save the time outs for when the situation has escalated. It works best when it's your last resort.

We use a spot in our hallway too, everywhere else, including the bedroom has far too much stimulation etc. I usually follow a time out with, thankyou for sitting there so quietly now we can go and play lego, do drawing, etc together. We also tried and do the distract/ redirect etc first though, and something my MCHN taught me was to always deal with the injured first, so if DD hurt DS when he was little, I would comfort him give him a cuddle etc while ignoring her, and then deal with her, she learnt very quickly this wasnt the way to get my attention.

We have step in our hallway so yes my boys would be placed on the naughty step. I would set the timer on the microwave so I couldn't lose track of time and they would sit their for a minute for every year they are. e.g 3 year old 3 mins 4 years old 4 mins. I found this helped most of the time as it would be enough to stop them from the mood that they were in. And if they got of the step and went back to the bad behaviour they would go straight back on the step.

My SIL has the 'thinking chair' which is not in the main area of the house. They use it so that her DD4 can think about her behaviour and why she is there.

Used to physically put her in her room. If she was attached to a chair at the time, the chair went too.

End result is now when we have a tantysnit she stalks off to her room by herself now and slams the door hard enough to rattle the windows.

Funny, other kid doesn't fight with us or do tanties so we don't even have a system for her ...

We do time out in their room, on their bed. When they get sent to their room, they know mummy means business, as it hardly ever gets to that stage. They don't much around in their room, they sit on their bed and think about what they've done. When the time is up, I go in there and expain why they were sent in here and what they're not to do in the future. I have never had any sleep issues with this.

We used to send them to their rooms, but DD1 just plays with her toys, and DS screams the entire time - but he has sleep issues and started saying that he didn't want to go to bed cos his bedroom was scary.

So now we send them to the corner. Any corner will do! lol

We used to use "next to the sink" cos that's what they used a daycare. For DD that meant in front of the island bench. If she was having a mega fit though I carry her into her room and tell her she can come out as soon as she's calmed down. Not for punishment as such but because it's safe in there and she can't hurt much especially herself.
I'd periodically ask her if she was finished (neither of my kids like to be touched in a tantie), and she'd always let me know.
When she was naughty I'd ask her if she planned to to that again, and usually she said no and could apologise and go back to what she was doing.

Yep, a boring spot on the kitchen floor - near the kitchen table. Nothing for her to look at or play with. I also only do 1 minute & put the timer on the oven, so when it beeps she knows she can get up. I couldn't stand listening to her throw a tantrum or cry for more than a minute

We do "time in" where DS has to sit quietly and think about why we're not happy with what he has done (he was clearly happy with his behaviour and didn't see it as wrong!), then consider if he needs to apologise.

Of course, if he can explain my reaction was over the top, I apologise. And have done - once! It makes apologies from DS a lot more frequent now, as he knows I apologise too.

There is no way that DD would sit/stand somewhere that we told her to if she had been naughty and I can't physically pick her up and take her somewhere. So generally I remove myself and go shut myself in a bedroom after saying, "well DD if you do x, y, z ... mama go. Mama doesn't like it." She does see this as a punishment because she's my little shadow. I only stay there for a very short time then I come out and explain again about why I left. Then kiss and hugs.

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We do "time in" where DS has to sit quietly and think about why we're not happy with what he has done (he was clearly happy with his behaviour and didn't see it as wrong!), then consider if he needs to apologise.

Of course, if he can explain my reaction was over the top, I apologise. And have done - once! It makes apologies from DS a lot more frequent now, as he knows I apologise too.

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That sounds like an excellent way to deal with it because it shows your DS that adults make mistakes too, and that saying sorry is a good thing to do when you make a mistake, do something wrong etc.


I always try to explain to DSD why her behaviour is not acceptable, she is 11 so should know better. We also talk about acceptable and expected behaviour, and I share experiances about what I did wrong as a kid. I try to show her that I have made mistakes when I was a kid and I learnt from them.

We have a spot in the hallway we use for time-out where it's nice and boring. If DS is misbehaving we tell him he needs to stop or he will be put in time-out. If he continues to misbehave we take him down the hallway and tell him "That's enough, I told you to stop XXX, you're in time-out" and then we go back to whatever we were doing. We only leave him there for 30 seconds or he forgets why he was placed there. Then we go back down the hall and ask him (on his level) why he is in time out. Sometimes he can answer and sometimes he's not too sure to so we tell him "you were put here because I asked you to stop XXX and you did not, we don't XXX, it's not acceptable" then we get him to apologize and give hugs and kisses and let him go back to playing. It works really well for us.

As for getting up out of time-out it is rare because if he moves, we just silently put him back until he stays put, and he knows now it will be over much quicker if he just stays put.

Our time out can be anywhere just somewhere where we can remove DD from the situation, we tell her why she is there and she can come back when she is willing to play nicely/ talk nicely or whatever the problem was. So there is no set time, just once she is calm and is out of her bad mood, then we discuss what was the problem and if need be an apology to someone we do that then move on and forget about it.

we put DD on a chair where she can see everything thats going on, if we are out we put her in a corner or on a chair