No time-out with tantrums, but time-in: ‘Calm down together first’ | Child & Family

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May 22, 2022 at 06:40

In the hallway, to your room or on the time-out bench: these are well-known methods for letting your hot-tempered child cool down. But you can also turn it around: not a time-out, but a time-in.

By NU.nl

During a tantrum or argument, parents often tend to give a child a time-out. “Cooling down alone in their room. But behind explosive behavior there are always feelings, often with sadness or frustration. A time-out does not help to place and process these feelings: the frustration lingers and you as a parent do not know what there is behind the undesirable behavior,” says remedial educationalist and child and youth coach Charlotte Borggreve.

Contact with your child at a time of stress

With a time-in you sit down with your child, ask about his feelings and help your child give those feelings a place. You also give alternatives to yelling, hitting or arguing.

“The best moment to use the time-in is before a child is completely over his head. When you use a time-in, you give space for the emotions that are there at that moment, and as a parent you remain emotional and physically available,” says Infant Mental Health Specialist and remedial educationalist Nanniek Bijen.

A time-in is really different from rewarding a child for behavior you would rather not see.

Nanniek Bijen, remedial educationalist

“The great thing about a time-in is that there is still contact between parent and child. When a child is under high stress, the brain becomes clouded too much to be able to remember appointments well. This stress can be caused by various For example, frustration because something doesn’t work, anger because something has just been taken, sadness because something has broken or because the child does not feel completely safe at that moment,” says Bijen.

The result may be that the child performs an action that we as adults do not like: throwing something, screaming, hitting someone, kicking something. Unlike with time-out, where you put the child in a place out of sight at such a time, with time-in you stay close to the child as an educator. This indicates that you are there for your child and that it is safe to express their feelings, says Bijen.

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articulate feelings

As a parent, you can name what you have seen in the child and what the child might be thinking and feeling at that moment, advises Bijen. “It is difficult for a child to attach words to his feelings: that is something you have to learn,” says Borggreve. Teaching your child to express his feelings helps to be better understood by others, Borggreve says.

For example, you can say, “I see you’re very angry because you can’t get the car back.” In this way you give words to what your child feels, so that you are, as it were, subtitling it. By looking together for what a child needs to regulate, such as a hug, quietly reading a book, sitting together and doing nothing, the child learns what it needs to be able to regulate feelings, says Bijen.

Bijen: “With a time-in you do not reward children for the behavior you would rather not see. You will certainly come back to this, but at the moment that the child is so high in emotions and stress, this message will probably not land after all. It is important to first calm down (together) and to recover and repair from safety and tranquility Realize that the commitment and effect of a time-in takes time: the child’s behavior does not change after one time-in .”

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