The day has finally come.
What has lasted for more than five years has reached a sad conclusion.
R.I.P. time outs.
My six-year-old has officially outgrown the punishment made famous by a TV nanny.
So long time out and the seat that forced my child into submission. You restored order in our home for more than 2000 days, and helped preserve my sanity by removing my kid from activities in which she exercised inappropriate behavior.
So now what?
I relied heavily on time outs to discipline my child. They were effective in that they provided consistent consequences and the place of punishment was well defined. What’s more, they helped my child take responsibility for her actions.
Unfortunately, they didn’t eliminate bad behavior all together, but that is not their intent. Still, I am now left to experiment with other forms of punishment until I find one that will yield the results that I was used to experiencing with good ol’ fashioned time outs.
One of my friends with older children suggested I start doling out fines as a method of punishment. For example, if my daughter breaks a house rule, she would be issued a “fine” in the form of a lost privilege or a beloved toy for a specific amount of time. This method of discipline supposedly works well for children who grasp the concept that negative actions yield negative consequences.
Personally, I’m not quite sure how well this technique would go over with my daughter. I’ve been told that fining a child should be done consistently and with kindness. Typically, it takes a lot of negative behavior to push me to the point of even bothering to formally discipline my child (which is a mistake in and of itself), so I doubt I would be successful at kindly notifying my child that she will not be able to sleep with her cherished stuffed wiener dog for the next week because she refused to pick up her toys when asked to do so.
What other types of punishments would you suggest I use with a six-year-old. What works well with your kids, aside from spanking? I’m not a proponent of hitting as a form of discipline.