The Gist

• Time In is a particular way to spend time between parent and child that can reduce or eliminate the need for Time Out. (SO POWERFUL!)

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As we learn more and more about child development, motivation and learning, one thing becomes crystal clear in the research: 

Time Out Is Bad for Kids. 

I’m guessing you know this instinctually. I’m also guessing that you know Time Out doesn’t really work that well. Here are some things that tell you that Time Out doesn’t work.

You have to use Time Out repeatedly throughout the day.

You have to remind your child to stay in Time Out.

Your child runs away from you when you threaten them with a Time Out (or when they’re in Time Out).

You use Time Out for the same behaviors over and over again.

You are frustrated by how long it takes to get started with and through a Time Out.

Here’s what you instinctively feel without realizing it:

Making kids feel worse about a bad thing they did might get us short-term compliance (although how many times have you had to stand at the naughty step and physically force your child to stay there?). But making kids feel worse kicks their brains out of the ability to learn. We are essentially preventing them from learning empathy, emotional intelligence, frontal lobe development and self-efficacy when we punish them with Time Out. 

In short: Time Out is a way to control your kids in the short-term, but not a way to teach them anything about themselves or how to behave in the long run.

So, what’s a parent to do? Do we just let the kids do whatever they want?

Well, no.

But it’s more complicated than that (as you might expect).

In order to promote learning, empathy, good behavior, manners, self-efficacy in our kids, we have to find ways to have connection with them so that when moments of correction come up, we are able to talk through them constructively.

One of the best things we can do is FRONT-LOAD the good stuff by using Time In as a conscious strategy in the time we spend with our kids.

Here’s what I mean by Time In (which is also called Child-Directed Time, Special Time, Child-Led Learning, Child-Led Play). 

Time In is:

1:1 time between one parent and one child

Lasts as few as 10 minutes at a time (but can be longer)

Time during which the adult is fully available to the child (no chores, no tech, no other people)

The adult simply following the lead of the child.

That’s it.

Simple, right?

Well, yes. Simple, but not always easy. It’s not rocket science, but there are some things that adults should know about Time In that can help make it successful. 

Stay tuned for those in the next video.

All my best-

Gabriele