3 Discipline Tactics to Use OTHER Than Time Out

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Raising children is an incredibly rewarding job, but it also requires a lot of tweaking, learning on the job, and mastering your discipline to fit the child. It is fairly common for parents and teachers alike to give children a “time-out” as a discipline method, allowing children to be removed from a situation or temporarily stopped from making a poor choice. The most common recommendation as someone who taught in quite a few preschools was to make sure that the time-out was only done for a minute per the child’s life. So if a child is five, he or she would sit in a time-out for five minutes.

But sometimes, a time-out (in my opinion), can feel overdone or not as effective as perhaps other ways of disciplining my child. More often than not, some of my former students would get out of a time-out and revert right back to the behavior that earned them that consequence in the first place. What are other ways to help a child from making a poor choice?

3 Positive Discipline Tactics

1-  Redirection

Instead of offering a consequence or a time-out, try redirecting the child to another activity or change of scenery. Sometimes when we divert our child’s attention to something different, it will stop the child from making bad choices. Consider that your child could be acting out due to a number of reasons: fatigue, hunger, stress, personality, and other reasons.

RELATED: 3 Top Tips: How To Keep Your Cool

Redirecting your child as a form of positive discipline can help your child “snap out” of it long enough to make better choices. A change of scenery in the classroom (moving from blocks to book center) or at home (inside to outside) can really help.

2- Red Light Green Light

Ask your child to pause on yellow– “Is this a good choice you’re about to make?”

You can tell your child making good choices earns a “green”– or go, like at a stoplight.

Right before your kiddo is about to make a bad decision, that’s when you ask: “Is this a good choice you’re about to make?”

This is yellow.

And if your kid does, gulp, make that bad choice, it’s a red– STOP.

3- How Can I Help You?

Sometimes when my daughter is acting out, I will ask her how I can help. Sometimes she will tell me that she’s angry and needs a hug.

Your child may be lashing out or acting impulsively due to emotions or a struggle with making the right choice. Asking how you can help may pause that meltdown.

RELATED: Understanding Your Childs Body Language