Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Download: 13 Parenting Strategies for ADHD Kids.Watch: Discipline With a Twist: How to Manage Challenging Behavior Problems.Read: ADHD Behavior Techniques for Positive Parents.Thinking about, writing down, or drawing the solutions to his or her problem.As you feel it slowly descend, you feel more relaxed. Doing physical relaxation exercises (the yoga pose called the Cat) or imagining that you’re in a cozy elevator.Meditating (focus attention on the inflow and outflow of breath, notice distractions that pop up, and return to focus on the breath).Visualizing an image that helps him cope (a special place in nature, a favorite trip, or an imaginary journey).How Can I Give a Smarter Time-Out?īecause you’re changing the purpose of a time-out from passive punishment to working out problems, suggest activities that your child can do in the time-out area to help him gain control and feel better. TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House. “Where did we ever get the crazy idea,” Nelsen writes, “that to make children do better, we must first make them feel worse?” A positive time-out gives kids a way to get a grip on their own behavior, and allows them to take a role in becoming capable people.Įxcerpted with permission from The Myth of the ADHD Child: 101 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion, by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. To those skeptical about the positive time-out, Nelsen insists that it can work if parents give the tactic enough time (three to six weeks), and if they adopt a positive attitude of encouragement and respect for their child. In this space, children begin to see the area as a place for renewal, not a place for feeling bad about themselves. If children associate the words “time-out” with punishment, rename the space: Call it the thinking corner, quiet space, home base, energy place, or chill-out spot. Places to go for time-outs could be anywhere: a bedroom, a special chair, or a bench on the school playground. She even recommends that parents get a timer and have children set it to the amount of time they need to get themselves together. Nelsen suggests that the children be the ones to decide when they need to go to a time-out area. In their designated spot, they can do things to make themselves feel better, or to put themselves in a state of mind that will allow them to face the problem in a constructive manner. How Offering Children Choices Improves Time-OutsĬhild discipline expert Jane Nelsen, Ed.D., counsels parents to tell kids that it can be helpful to have a place where they can go when they feel upset or out of control. Even if a punitive time-out controls a child’s behavior in the short run, it may come at the cost of the child’s self-respect. However, we noted increased rather than decreased activity levels.” This may occur due to the need for many under-aroused kids to create their own stimulation in a place (the corner) that has very low levels of stimulation. If isolation really has a calming effect on hyperactive children, one would expect to see reduced activity during the time-out periods. Two prominent researchers, Thomas Zentall, Ph.D., and Sydney Zentall, Ph.D., have commented the effects of time-outs: “In general, time-out periods appear to be aversive to hyperactive children. One best-selling book (and accompanying video) tells parents of ADHD-labeled kids to count “1…2…3…,” and if the child hasn’t complied with the parent’s command during the count, he or she must go to the time-out area for five minutes.īut do time outs really work? Unfortunately, using a time-out as a punitive method with kids diagnosed with ADHD may turn out to be counterproductive. The time-out has been a popular discipline method in the ADHD parenting community. Do Time-Outs Work for Children with ADHD?
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