A few months after my ex husband and I split up my son really started acting out. I felt like I had tried everything. Nothing worked. I already felt guilty about the divorce and everything he was going through, but now I felt like a failure as a parent on top of it. It didn’t matter what the consequence was, I just couldn’t keep him under control. I finally decided to talk to his pediatrician about it. Come to find out, I had been doing this whole time-out thing all wrong!
Every time Logan was in time-out he’d sit in the corner and I’d talk to him about why he was there. It seemed like the right thing to do, but he still had my full attention. He also had the entire rest of my family on his side. How could I put such a sweet little thing in time out?! I guess that’s what comes from being cute. My pediatrician quickly saw the problem. He told me that if time out was really going to be effective, I needed to put Logan in the other room. Children usually act out for attention and having him in the same room with everyone else was only reinforcing his bad behavior. He needed a time-out from everyone so that he could learn to calm himself down on his own.
When we got home from the doctor’s office that day I decided to give it a try. It worked! I was amazed at the difference it made. After his three minutes were up I went in and told him that I loved him, but he needed to listen and do what he was told now. He gave me a hug and told me he was sorry and that was that! He dislikes it enough that he almost always does what he is told if he knows time out is coming. It changed everything for us. It was definitely worth that trip to the doctor!