Time for a timeout
April 21st, 2008, 06:32 pm
My brother and sister in-law have an interesting view on timeouts that I’ve never heard before. Timeout isn’t a punishment for their kids. It’s a time where the child gets a chance to calm down and center himself or herself.
What they do is when they can see Sam, their two year old son, is starting to get frustrated or not acting like his normal self they put him in timeout. This gives him a chance to recenter himself. They say that the most successful timeouts are the ones when Sam blows up, screaming and yelling. After he blows up, he goes back to his normal self. He is able to get out all of his negative emotions in a controlled and safe environment where he can’t hurt himself or others.
Timeouts can be used by adults as well. For instance, your spouse is doing something to upset you. Instead of screaming out your spouse you can put yourself into timeout and later come back to have a constructive discussion.
Just like Sam you can get all of your negative emotions out in controlled and safe environment. You don’t have to worry about hurting yourself or someone else. How you get your emotions out is up to you as long as you get your emotions out (don’t bottle them up) or hurt yourself (cutting is a no no).
If you do try this, hopefully whoever you are mad at will let you go have your timeout. I didn’t realize it at the time but I would try to put myself in timeout when I’d get in a fight with an ex. She wanted to duke it out when I wanted to go calm down. This frustrated me even more and we would yell back and forth hurting each other verbally. It didn’t help out at all. Also, giving you a chance to think you might realize your getting upset over nothing or that you were wrong.
