An instant parent fix is not usually a long term solution
The slow and steady solutions are always better
“We tried Time Out, and it didn’t work for us”. Boy, have I heard that before and there’s good reason.
We live in an instant world. Flush with modern conveniences, we are now used to getting things we want very quickly. We don’t need to get up and consult the dictionary to find out the meaning of a word, we just ask Alexa or Siri. We don’t need to wait for the weather report, we simply look at our watches or phones.
And while this has been great for us, there are some areas it has not been in our best interest. One of these is parenting.
Many parents now have the primary goal of making their child feel successful and happy to improve their self-esteem. But many parents don’t want to wait to see if all of their efforts work out. In these instant times, some parents want to see happiness and victory in their child RIGHT NOW.
To do that they work at making their child cheerful and successful with sure things, often given immediately. So, these parents might give extreme praise that makes children feel successful despite their possible lacklustre effort. Or offer regular consolation prizes the moment they feel their child is moving into the blah territory.
Other easy fixes might be to blame other people for the child’s failure rather than let the child feel the sting. If all else fails, the parent might end up putting in the majority of work, so the child does end up successful but without actually achieving it themselves.
All of this is well intentioned — of course it is. No parent sets out to harm their child. And these efforts usually have instant results. But these results last a very short time. Paradoxically, they don’t build the longer-term and more important skills in the child, such as resilience and self-regulation.
Ironically, it is the short-term fixes that often produce the worst long-term results in children. Worse, it makes parent the Minister for Yes and the child not used to the word “No”.
But a need for instant gratification is perhaps at its most dangerous when parents are looking to implement consequences for their child’s poor choices. When faced with a badly behaved child, some parents want a result that works fast.
Unfortunately, the truly effective strategies, such as Time Out, often don’t work instantly, particularly if the child has been badly behaved for some time with no consequence. That’s because the child is so used to being in charge that they will keep running out of Time Out and won’t immediately calm down in the space.
Faced with it taking a longer time than they want, many parents give up too soon and revert to the quick fix — screaming at their child or smacking them on the bottom. Again, these strategies will probably work to get the parent in charge again, but they come at a long-term cost.
Yelling will work a few times and then cease to work when the child invariably switches off. Smacking them is an aggressive tactic which risks the parent becoming out of control. It’s role modelling a form of violence to the child. When the child is bigger and stronger it is likely that they will turn this violence back on the parent or another loved one.
Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes in parenting. The slow and steady form of being warm and caring but also occasionally firm and implementing consequences when needed is not an instant fix. But it’s the sort of slow and steady approach that will reap rewards… for everyone.
Takeaway for parents
How to do Time Out properly
· When they behave badly, take them to a quiet place in the same room as you — a chair, the bottom step, on a rug.
· Say “Time Out goes for (2–5) minutes and starts when you are calm.”
· If they run away, calmly bring them back as often as it takes. This behaviour is more to do with their compliance and expectations, not the fault of the strategy.
· When they have been quiet for the time, tell them Time Out’s over. Then get back to usual life.
· Get help from a parenting specialist if it doesn’t work for your family.
