![]() ![]() Time out should be used sparingly, as overuse lessens the impact for the child. The danger in labelling a child as naughty is that they will come to believe you and to give up on themselves, they will accept that they are a naughty child and may believe the naughty behaviour is outside their control to change and improve. Go ahead and label the behaviour as naughty (as in 'it's naughty to take someone else's toy'), but don't say 'you are a naughty child'. It is best not to refer to it as a naughty chair, or to repeatedly label the child as naughty. The idea of time out is to give the child (and yourself ) a few minutes away from the argument to reflect on what has happened and why, to think of ways it could be handled differently in future and then to come out of time out ready to move on and leave the argument behind. Sounds like your friend really doesn't have much of an idea on how to use this approach. Her DD reacts well to it and will come and apologise. However one of my friends uses it with her 2 year old and it seems to work quite well for her and she is not constantly saying "you will have to go on the naughty chair" etc. And I don't like the labelling of "naughty" but that is probably just me! Similar to any rigid punishment based system IMO, like smacking used to be used for everything. The idea is it's an unpleasant thing to impose - child has to sit on boring chair in corner and is not allowed to play - and so they will think "Oh, I better not do X or I will have to go on the naughty step". Which is removing the child from a situation for a short time (1 minute per year of age usually quoted) to allow them to calm down - but it has been made into a punishment rather than a coping strategy (because when time out is used as intended, some children will take themselves there if they are finding it difficult to calm down) - by labelling it "the naughty chair" (Reminds me of the dunce corner they used in Victorian times ) and using it for everything, not just times when the child needs to calm down.
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