Welcome to From Insults to Respect.
Recently I came upon an article in the October 2019 edition of the American Psychologist about using timeouts with children from 2 to 8 years of age. As a grandfather, it caught my attention.
According to the authors, Mark R. Dadds and Lucy A. Tully, the use of this technique is quite controversial. Well, it just so happens I love dealing with controversial issues. Though it often leads to some nasty insults flying my way, it gives me the opportunity to practice avoiding throwing insults back, and modeling a more respectful style.
The Controversy
What does this controversy look like? Well, let’s begin by looking at an article published in Time magazine titled, “Time Outs Are Hurting Your Child.” Here we learn from the authors, Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, that:
“The problem is, children have a profound need for connection. Decades of research in attachment demonstrate that particularly in times of distress, we need to be near and be soothed by the people who care for us. But when children lose emotional control, parents often put them in their room or by themselves in the “naughty chair,” meaning that in this moment of emotional distress they have to suffer alone.”
Contrast this position with one expressed in an article published in the Washington Post titled, “Timeouts Get a Bad Rap, But They Work — When Used Correctly.” Its author, Camilo Ortiz wrote, in part:
“The effectiveness of timeouts has been proven through decades of research, including work in the field of “behavioral parent training,” in which professionals teach parents a set of effective techniques. These techniques — a combination of reinforcement of appropriate behavior, effective commands, timeouts and other consequences — are usually used with children who exhibit moderate to severe disruptive behavior, but they have also been shown to be effective with children demonstrating less severe behavior.
And a number of smaller, focused studies have specifically tested timeout and found it to be effective at reducing misbehavior in young children, typically ages 2 to 6. It also has been shown to be a more effective way of modifying behavior than physical discipline techniques, such as spanking. In fact, using timeouts as a tool to help parents set limits reduces the incidence of physical abuse by caregivers. And any alternative to physical discipline is a good thing. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both support timeout as a best practice for behavior management in young children.”
Apparently, part of the controversy is due to the timeout technique being employed in different ways. Consider a parent who says she uses time out with her 5-year-old daughter. Then, when we watch her using the technique, we discover that whenever her daughter acts in any way that is annoying her, she begins to scream, shoves her into her room, while shouting, “You better shut-up you little brat!” She keeps her alone in her room for an hour.
Now consider another mother who says she uses timeouts with her 5-year-old son. This time, when we watch what she actually does, we see that she uses it along with a much larger set of discipline techniques that she learned from reading the manualized and evidence-based parenting program titled, The Incredible Years. 
Because she has a number of tools to teach her child to learn how to behave in effective ways, she only uses timeouts on rare occasions, lasting only 5 minutes, and targeting just one behavior during a period of a few weeks until her child has learned a new positive behavior pattern to replace the negative behavior pattern. Then, slowly, she incorporates the technique for teaching another behavior pattern. She never tells her child to stop doing the negative behavior pattern, but instead, she explains, as best that she can, what behavior pattern would be better, and explains why it would be better. 
When she sends her child to timeout, she does so in a calm, supportive voice, and remains in the same room with him. Prior to carrying out this approach, she has discussed with her child this technique, explaining that learning a new skill takes time, and timeout will help him to learn to act in a manner people will respect. She emphasizes throughout the process that she loves him, and expresses confidence that he will master the new skill soon.
So, here we see two parents believing they use timeouts with their child, but both use dramatically different approaches. I used timeouts with my two sons when they were very young in an even different way. I’ll describe this other approach shortly, but, for now, my main point in this section is that part of the controversy has to do with the fact that when people say they use timeouts, without finding out more details about how they use it, a great deal of misunderstanding can ensue.
Back to the American Psychology Article
Dadds and Tully, the authors of the American Psychologist article I mentioned at the beginning of this post, say that for them the definition of timeout is, “…a parenting strategy in which a child’s access to rewards, usually parental attention, is temporarily removed contingent upon a problem behavior and reinstated following a specified period of nonproblem behavior.”
Removing access to rewards is a type of punishment, and research on punishment indicates it leads to variable results, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Dadds and Tully appear to hope to mitigate any bad results by advocating that rather than using timeout as a stand alone strategy, its use “must be part of a broader behavior program that promotes a warm and rewarding relationship, and explicitly teaches alternative positive child behaviors to replace the problem behavior to improve the child’s self-efficacy in meeting their own needs.”
These authors, reviewing the research evidence, conclude that timeout, when used as they describe, can promote a child’s mental health and that there is an absence of evidence showing it is harmful after five decades of research. Meanwhile, inappropriate parental discipline strategies have been, and continue to be implemented in the name of “timeout,” and these are potentially harmful.
Now, before moving on, let me be clear that I am not disputing the research findings presented by Dadds and Tully. That said, my wife and I nevertheless used with our two sons when they were young a strategy that I viewed as timeout, but it differed in important ways from their approach. I think that difference is worth considering.
How I Used Timeouts
Like the authors in the American Psychologist article, I used timeouts as part of a broader child rearing strategy. However, unlike them, when I did use it, I did not seek to remove my child’s access to rewards, or any other type of punishment.
I have described my broader child rearing strategy in earlier posts (see HERE and HERE) Very briefly, it involved identifying what I wanted each of my two sons to do better and explaining to each of them why it would be better. If one or the other, did not succeed immediately in doing it just right, and began to resist, sometimes he would flare up in anger. When a situation of this kind occurred and he was all tense and excited, I would drop the subject and direct his attention to something else. Then, a little later on, I would bring it up again when he was in a calm mood. As likely as not, he would go over it now without any difficulty.
Another part of my strategy was, whenever possible, to teach my sons to improve their behaviors by focussing on the notion of a good. 
As William James, the great psychologist and philosopher, described using this approach with children:
Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity. Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal’s inner springs of joy.
We would celebrate success, rather than punish less than ideal behavior. And we had family meetings to discuss how we could improve how things were going in our home. My wife and I would first ask our sons what plan they suggest to solve a problem. Even if we thought the plan was less than perfect, we would often support giving it a try for a week. Then, if problems of the plan did occur, it would be discussed at the next meeting.
By using our sons’ plans as much as possible, they would be so intent on proving it can work, they would make it work despite flaws. As parents, our goals were to encourage our kids to understand that we were willing to listen to them, and we valued what they had to say. It was also important to us to foster in our boys sufficient self-efficacy in coming up with solutions that they could successfully implement, rather than always relying on authorities.
Finally, I am a big believer in teaching through stories. When an issue came up, I would either rely on a story I had heard, or make one up, designed to help them to consider better approaches to resolve certain problems. And I had both my boys read my three novels that have, embedded in their relatable narrative, a variety of issues regarding kindness and acting in ways that foster respect from others.
Now, because of these approaches, my wife does not recall using timeouts, and I rarely used it. When I would, it was not designed to teach them to improve their behavior. It occurred when someone nearby was having a hard time tolerating something one or both of my sons was doing.
For example, I might come home from work and my wife would say, “Jeff, could you get the kids away from me, I’m preparing dinner and they keep screaming.” So I would take them outside if it was nice out, or up to their room, while explaining, “Mom needs some quiet time.” Then when we would get to the quiet place, I would ask if they wanted some “quiet time” themselves, or did they want me to stay. They always said they wanted me to stay. We would then do something fun.
Note that in contrast to the American Psychologist article I discussed earlier, my use of this type of timeout was not intended to take away some valued reward. Rather, I would seek to do something pleasant with them. At some point, when all was calm, I would ask gently, “When you were making all that noise near Mom, had she asked you to quiet down?” I would then listen to their responses and gently ask what they could do better if a similar situation comes up in the future? When they were very young, sometimes they blamed someone other than themselves for what happened, and I would frown. Sometimes they responded in a manner that took responsibility for their actions, and I would say how much I appreciated what they had said.
As another example, when we were in a restaurant, if one of my boys began to make too much noise, I would take him outside, and explain that people who go to restaurants typically prefer to eat in a pleasantly quiet atmosphere. I would then explain that when he was ready to go back and speak softly we could enjoy a nice family meal together. Typically, in less than five minutes, we would be back at our table.
Now, what I just described, was the general discipline plan. That said, neither I, nor my wife always stuck perfectly to it. We did pretty good, but we both did lose our temper from time to time. When calm returned, I would say at a family meeting that I wished I had handled the situation better. I would also explain that sometimes even adults are not always perfect, and when I raised my voice in anger, if they thought it meant I don’t love them, actually I love them a whole lot.
Let me be crystal clear, I do not have any research evidence that suggests my approach is distinctly better than any of the others that uses timeout along with a broader discipline approach. All I can say for it is that it felt more right to me as I went through the period of my life when I parented on a daily basis, and though I’m obviously biased, as far as I’m concerned, both my boys, now in their thirties, turned out to be fine young men.
Well, there you have it, some thoughts on the controversy surrounding timeouts. I hope you find something helpful in some of the ideas that I shared, and please feel free to share your ideas with me and all of the followers of this blog.
Jeff
Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
About a minute later, Ivy takes her mother’s hand and leads her back into the store. The rest of the shopping experience goes by without any further disruptions.
“Well,” says Aaron, “another week has gone by, so it is time to have another family meeting. We have these meetings because we love each other and we want to celebrate things that are going well for the family and we also want to figure out ways to solve problems so things keep getting better and better.”
“I like the way Joel and I played catch before dinner tonight,” says Aaron. “I was throwing these high flies to him, and he caught almost every one!” 
“Yeah, Dad,” Joel replies. Last night you yelled at me when it was time to go to bed. That’s not very respectful.”
William James explained that certain children, if they do not succeed immediately in doing something just right and are then criticized, flare up in anger and refuse to cooperate. Such children are oftentimes treated as sinful and are punished; or else the parent pits his or her will against the child’s will.
“It is in no other way that we overcome balkiness in a horse,” said James. “We divert his attention, do something to his nose or ear, lead him around in a circle, and thus get him over a place where flogging would only have made him more invincible.”
Well, it just so happens that if you use the William James approach consistently, you really don’t reinforce balkiness because children soon realize that they have not won. They simply come to the understanding that “dropping the subject” does not mean that anyone has won. Instead, they soon connect the “dropping the subject” fact with the “bringing the topic up again later” fact. Dropping the subject, comes to mean their parents will be returning to the subject after they and their parents have some time to calm down and think about the issues in a more calm state.
See to it now, I beg you, that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act, whenever possible, under the notion of a good. Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity. Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal’s inner springs of joy. And, in the lessons which you may be legally obliged to conduct upon the bad effects of alcohol, lay less stress than the books on the drunkard’s stomach, kidneys, nerves, and social miseries, and more on the blessings of having an organism kept in lifelong possession of its full youthful elasticity by a sweet, sound blood, to which stimulants and narcotics are unknown, and to which the morning sun and air and dew comes as sufficiently powerful intoxicants. 
The general idea here is that in the arena of the moral life, whenever a positive ideal is aroused, it is as if the whole scale of values change its equilibrium. As James makes this point, he declares that at such times, “The force of old temptations vanishes, and what a moment ago was impossible is now not only possible, but easy.”
Middle school students can read A Hero Grows in Brooklyn on their own, and it can be downloaded on a computer or any of the popular electronic readers for free 
“Be patient, then, and sympathetic with the type of mind that cuts a poor figure in examinations. It may, in the long examination which life sets us, come out in the end in better shape than the glib and ready reproducer, its passions being deeper, its purposes more worthy, its combining powers less commonplace, and its total mental output consequently more important.” 
So, that said, in what is to follow, I’m not suggesting that the first time you lose your temper with your kids you have suddenly turned them into a future serial murderer, or anything of that sort. Both of my boys are now fully grown, and they are wonderful. Nevertheless, I do think it is worthwhile for parents to think about the most helpful approaches for bringing up their children, and to be guided by the best information available.
According to the most recent UNICEF study, 80% of children are spanked or otherwise physically punished by their parents. Is this a wise way to be raising children?
As this body of work on spanking and physical punishment has accumulated, supporters of spanking have argued that the current studies do not clearly distinguish spanking from more serious physically abusive parenting behaviors. They claim that it is probably only “real physical abuse” that leads to harm. Additionally, spanking, they have argued, has only been linked with detrimental outcomes in methodologically weak studies.
First, they looked separately at studies of parents’ behaviors labeled as “spanking” defined as noninjurious, open-handed hitting on the buttocks or extremities with the intention of modifying child behavior. This definition therefore excluded the use of objects, the use of methods that have a reasonable expectation of causing harm or injury (e.g., beating, burning, choking, whipping), and the use of methods that are gratuitous expressions of parent displeasure without a clear disciplinary component (e.g., pulling hair, shaking, shoving). In this way, the researchers were able to determine the extent to which ordinary spanking is linked with child outcomes.
Then they examined the ways in which the strength and direction of the associations between spanking and child outcomes compare with the strength and direction of the associations between clearly abusive methods and child outcomes.
Spanking was associated with more aggression, antisocial behavior, externalizing problems, internalizing problems, mental health problems, and negative relationships with parents. Spanking was also significantly associated with lower moral internalization, lower cognitive ability, and lower self-esteem.
As expected, although spanking was associated with negative outcomes, physical abuse was found to have even greater negative outcomes. Said in a more technical manner, weighted mean effect size for spanking was d .25, while for physical abuse it was d .38. Both were significantly different from zero and both were positive in sign, indicating that both spanking and physical abuse were associated with greater levels of detrimental child outcomes. The magnitude of the mean effect size for spanking was 65% of the magnitude of the mean effect size for physical abuse.
Four of the studies compared adults who were spanked as children to those who were not. In three of the four, adults with a history of spanking from parents had more difficulties with controlling antisocial behavior, had more mental health problems, and came to believe physical punishment was a proper discipline strategy for their children.
Now, as consistent as these findings are, they could very well have been far stronger if they had looked separately at a group of parents who not only didn’t use any form of physical punishment, but also didn’t use other forms of harmful approaches for raising kids. Said another way, within the group of non-spanking parents there may have been some who don’t spend much quality time with their children, or most frequently interact with them by screaming whenever they catch them misbehaving. If those parents were eliminated from the group of non-spankers, the difference between non-spankers and spanking parents probably would have been even far more impressive. Why do I say this? For several reasons.
In another 
This is one of the reasons I’ve written a novel called A Hero Grows In Brooklyn. It can be downloaded on a computer or any of the popular electronic readers for free 