The Dos and Don'ts of the Elusive "Time-Out"

Susie, age 4, is playing with her Magna-Tiles when her younger brother, 18 months, grabs one out of the bin. Susie proceeds to yell at her brother and smacks him with her hand. You get angry and shout at Susie and tell her to go to her room all while she cries and begs for you not to send her to her room.

Most parents with young children have been there. And for most parents, this is how they know to implement time-out. In this post, I share the definition of time out and all of the considerations you need to consider before you implement a time out procedure. It doesn’t need to involve sending your child to their room in tears.

Regardless of where you’re at in your parenting journey, parental discipline strategies are a necessary and critical aspect of positive child development. Each time your child acts out, it’s an opportunity to build a more socially skilled, resilient, and self-regulating human. On the opposite side, when done poorly without the right tools, it’s a chance to increase interpersonal conflict, intense emotions, and impulsive selfishness.

Time-out has been researched for decades and there is overwhelming support for its positive impact on behaviors when implemented properly. However, it’s not intended to be used as a stand-alone intervention but rather combined with other positive parenting supports.

The evidence is clear that inappropriate parental discipline strategies have been, and continue to be, implemented in the name of time-out and these are widespread, ineffective, and potentially harmful. One of the main problems that I see is that there isn’t adequate education about the most effective way to use it. As a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in working with children, I created a roadmap on how you can use "time out from positive reinforcement" to create a healthier, happy family.

What’s Time-Out from Positive Reinforcement, Anyway?

Time-out means time away from positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement can be anything you add to your child’s environment after a specific behavior, like a reward or toy, that increases the likelihood the behavior will happen again. Once a child is in a time-out situation, they don't have an opportunity to gain a reward for a specific period of time, such as adult attention. In order for your time-out procedure to truly be a time out, it requires the three following parts:

1. There must be a difference between the time-in and time-out environment.
2. The loss of reinforcement must be immediate.
3. The future frequency of the behavior must be reduced in order for it to be considered a time-out. (Cooper et. al, 2020).

Let’s put this into practice and look at an example between two siblings. Jack and Judy are playing in the playroom and Jack throws a toy at Judy. Their mother removes Jack from the playroom (criteria two is met) and places him on the steps between the living room and playroom (this meets criteria one). Jack no longer throws toys over a period of one month, and finally, criteria three is met.

Types of Time-Out

There are different forms of time-out. The one you are probably most familiar with is the exclusion time-out. This is when there is a physical separation of the child from the time-in environment. This is usually when the child is in a confined, safe, supervised, and continuously monitored area. This is a lot like my example above where Susie was placed in her room.

There are also time-out procedures known as non-exclusion time-out, where the child is not placed in a secluded area like having them sit at the kitchen table or a place on the floor away from the time-in environment. There are four types of this form of time-out, including planned ignoring, terminate a specific reinforcer, contingent observation, and partition time-out. Let’s take a closer look at what this really means.

Planned ignoring involves looking away from the child, remaining quiet, or refraining from any interaction whatsoever for a specific time. Planned ignoring is most commonly used for attention-maintained behaviors (Kee, Hill, & Weist, 1999). For example, my daughter loves to push on the screen door as a way to get my husband's attention. In an effort to decrease this undesired behavior, he simply doesn’t respond or looks at her when she’s pushing on the screen. Over time, we have seen a reduction in the number of times she does this, so the planned ignoring was effective.

Environment Essential Reads

Climate Heats Up Youth Across the Political Spectrum

Is Viewing Water Outdoors More Restorative Than Green Spaces?

The second kind, terminate a specific reinforcer, is when you immediately stop an activity when the behavior occurs. Bishop and Stumphauzer (1973) showed that turning off the television when the children sucked on their thumbs successfully reduced thumb sucking in three children (there were only three children in the study). In the study, they identified that thumb sucking was highest during television time. Once the television went on and the children started sucking their thumb, the television was turned off. This was done repeatedly. Eventually, thumb sucking was greatly reduced.

In contingent observation, we reposition the child in the same setting so they can observe the ongoing activities but the access is lost. Remember the example of Jack and Judy above? Removing Jack to the steps where he can still see the play area would be an example of contingent observation. This is usually my go-to approach that I teach parents.

With partition time-out, the child remains in the time-in setting, but his view within the setting is restricted by a panel or cubicle, or a select space is arranged to serve as the time-out area.

So Does It Really Work?

In one word: Absolutely. When used intentionally, time-out is incredibly helpful to decrease any unwanted behavior with your child. Time-out from reinforcement is valuable because it’s an easy tool that can be applied almost anywhere, and it can be combined with other positive behavioral interventions such as a rewards chart. Best of all, we witness a rapid decrease in unwanted behavior.

7 Steps for an Effective Time-Out

1. Enrich the time-in environment: This means your child has access to positive reinforcement. Let’s say you’re at the park and your child is excited to be on the playground with friends. This would be an example of a rich time-in environment where they have access to peer attention, adult attention, and fun games. Time-out is only effective if you have a rich time-in space because if they engage in behavior such as hitting or pushing, they are removed from that playground. This teaches them that hitting and pushing equals no access to the playground and friends.

2. Define the behavior that will lead to a time-out: You must define it for all caregivers involved with your child's care so there is no confusion as to what target behavior warrants a time-out. You also want to make it clear to the child.

3. Determine the form and variation of time-out: Which one will you use? Exclusion or non-exclusion?

4. Explain the time-out procedure and rules: Posting rules in the environment should include the duration of the time-out and the exit criteria (Van Houten, 1979)

5. Determine the duration of the time-out period: Time-out periods should be between 2-5 minutes. Time-outs that exceed 15 minutes are not effective. It removes them from having the opportunity to earn reinforcement or engage in the appropriate alternative response (Solnick et al., 1977)

6. Apply time-out consistently: Each time the target behaviors occur, it needs to lead to a time-out. Using time-out occasionally may lead to a child being confused about which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.

7. Establish how and when you will eliminate the time-out: It's important to have an end criterion. Usually, a good ending criterion is when the behavior has dramatically decreased or has been eliminated. Set a date on the calendar (one or two weeks ahead) and check in to see if you see a decrease in the undesired behavior.

If you’ve felt confused by time-out and how to implement it effectively like most parents, I hope this guide will serve as a useful tool in your arsenal. Time-out is a well-researched and highly effective device that should serve your family for a long time to come. And remember, you want to consider this when you’ve tried nonpunitive measures first, and they have not worked. Finally, make sure you have a clear plan that’s communicated with your child so there is no confusion about the when and how the time-out will be used. The light at the end of the tunnel is there: We all just need a better flashlight sometimes.