What is time out?
Time out is an effective technique for reducing specific, problematic behaviors. It removes a child from activities, attention, or rewards that may be reinforcing the problematic behavior.
When done correctly, time out:
- Can effectively decrease moderate to severe behaviors over time.
- Does not cause harm to your child or have an impact on your relationship with your child.
Why is time out important?
Time out can provide a clear connection between a problematic behavior and an immediate, negative consequence. This helps reduce the chances that there will be an increase in challenging behaviors for both the child and parent/caregiver. Time out is one of several approaches that can be effective in reducing challenging behaviors. Time outs are most effective when a parent/caregiver has a positive relationship with the child and regularly uses positive parenting approaches (praise, quality time).
What to do
- Pick 1 behavior that you want to see decrease. Once you feel more comfortable with this technique, you can pick up to 3 behaviors to target with time out.
- These behaviors should be easily defined and cause significant challenges. E.g., disobeying an instruction or pushing others.
- In the beginning, it is helpful to pick a behavior that only occurs once or a few times a day.
- Identify a behavior you’d like to see instead of the challenging behavior (the “positive opposite”). Remember to praise your child when you see that positive opposite behavior!
- Pick a place for time out that is safe, can be easily monitored, and doesn’t allow your child to have access to attention or desired activities.
- For example, sending a child to their room for time out often does not work, because they often still have access to their toys and electronics.
- Decide how long the time out will be. For most children, 5 minutes is sufficient. For children younger than 5 years old, you can try the general rule of 1 minute per year of age (e.g., 3 minutes for a 3-year-old).
- Consider backup consequences if your child refuses to go to time out, leaves time out early, or shows very challenging behaviors during time out. It’s recommended that the backup consequence be more significant than time out (e.g., removal of a privilege for several hours). When given the choice to serve time out appropriately or to have a more significant consequence, the child will often choose to serve time out.
- Adding more time to the time out can be a backup consequence to consider for some children. For more mild behaviors (complaining, whining, arguing), try to use active ignoring.
- Importantly, these backup consequences should be discussed with the child ahead of time, along with all the details of the time out system. This helps set the child up for success by helping them know what the expectations are and understand the process in advance.
How to do time out
There are two approaches to doing time out, depending upon the behavior: “immediate” and “after a warning.”
Immediate
Time out is often done immediately when there is a serious enough behavior that shouldn’t require a warning (e.g., harm to others, destroying something, breaking a house rule). Here are the suggested steps:
- When the problematic behavior has occurred (e.g., hitting sibling), inform the child of what they did. Then, state in a calm and neutral voice that they will have a time out that begins immediately as a result of their behavior.
[Example: ”Johnny, you hit your sister. As a result, you will have a five minute time out right now. Johnny, please go to your time out area now.”]
- Don’t engage the child by explaining or instructing. Don’t scold or argue. Otherwise, those actions will provide the child with unnecessary attention. The time out system should have already been explained to your child in advance, so you can focus on carrying out the time out.
- Start the timer.
- Use backup consequence if needed.
- The child should show at least one minute of appropriate behavior at the end of time out in order for it to end. Appropriate behaviors can include staying calm, keeping their hands/feet to themselves, and speaking respectfully.
- When the time is done, let your child know that time out is over. Check to see if your child understands why they were in time out. If they do not know, provide them the answer in a matter-of-fact manner (no lecturing or scolding).
After a warning
Time out can also be done in response to a child not following through on instructions. We don’t always expect children to follow through the first time with instructions. Suggested steps for time outs after a warning include:
- Give an effective instruction (“Johnny, please put your shoes in the closet now.”).
- Count to 5 in your head.
- If your child does not follow through, then give them a single warning (“Johnny, please put your shoes in the closet now or you will have to go to time out.”)
- Count to 5 in your head.
- If your child still hasn’t followed through on the instruction, inform them what they did and that they will have a time out now. Keep the explanation as clear and short as possible. (”Johnny, you didn’t put your shoes away after I asked you twice, as a result you have a five minute time out right now. Johnny, please go to your time out area now”.)
- Don’t engage the child by explaining or instructing. Don’t scold or argue. These actions will provide unnecessary attention. The time out system should have been explained to your child in advance, so you can focus on carrying out the time out.
- Start the timer.
- Use backup consequence if needed.
- The child should show at least one minute of appropriate behavior at the end of time out in order for it to end. Appropriate behaviors can include staying calm, keeping their hands/feet to themselves, and speaking respectfully.
- When the time is done, let your child know that time out is over. Check to see if they know why they were in time out. If they do not know, provide them the answer in a matter-of-fact manner (no lecturing or scolding).
- Since time out occurred because they did not follow through on a request, re-issue the request to the child (“Johnny, please put your shoes in the closet now.”).
Between-Session Practice
To start with, what is one behavior you would like to choose for time out? (Once you feel more comfortable with this technique, you can choose up to 3 behaviors to target with time out).
___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________
What are the “positive opposite” behaviors that you would like to pay attention to and praise? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________
Where and how long will time out be? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________
What are some backup consequences? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________
When will you talk to your child/family about this time out system? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________
What barriers do you anticipate will come up? Think about internal barriers (e.g., managing strong emotions, changing the way you do time outs) and external barriers (e.g., other family members, distractions in the environment). How can you manage these barriers? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________