From: elg@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 5 Nov 92 18:54:16 CDT
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: 20/20 and Spanking
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <24093@alice.att.com>, by llf@alice.att.com (alice!llf):
> In several articles elg@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com (Eric Lee Green) writes:
>
>> In many behavior centers, there are two levels of exclusionary timeout. One
>> is called simply "timeout", where the child sits in a chair facing into a
>> corner, or stands facing into a corner. If the child refuses to comply with
>> regular "timeout", the child is then taken to a seclusionary timeout room
>> where he HAS to serve his (now longer) timeout simply because there's no
>
> I find this very interesting.  I came across a book that seemingly advocated
> seclusionary timeout.  Several people here commented that it seemed like
> "solitary confinement for the torture and interrogation of prisoners" and that
> it was close to child abuse.

Seclusionary timeout should only last for fifteen minutes at most, and
should only be used as a last resort after the child has twice refused to
serve a regular exclusionary timeout. Timeout rooms should be generous in
size (NOT converted closets), well-lighted, well-ventilated, and devoid of
any objects upon which the child can hurt himself. With normal children,
you don't need the stereotypical "padded room". A child's bedroom serves
quite well enough. You do NOT want to lock a child into a closet or "put
him in a box". For that matter, generally you do not want to keep a child
in timeout for more than five minutes. If the child is very upset you
want to wait until he's ready to serve timeout before you start that timer,
but once the timer is going, five to fifteen minutes.

> I've been unable to find a reasonable explanation of teaching simple timeout
> to a 2 year old without first teaching seclusionary timeout.  (I am also unable
> to find a place that is sufficiently boring to a 2 year old that seclusionary
> timeout would necessarily be successful.)

Taking a 2 year old to his room and keeping the door closed for five
minutes doesn't work? It doesn't matter that his room is not "sufficiently
boring". Surely your presence is more stimulating to your child than
anything in that room, hmm?

Note, though, that I do not deal with 2-year-old children in my job. I deal
with children ranging from 9 to 12.

> Physically restraining a small child to a chair in a corner generally results
> in physical damage to parental body parts.

You do not want to physically restrain a child in a chair. In fact, you
generally do not want any objects nearby if you must physically restrain a
child. A safe way to physically restrain a small child who is physically
acting out is, while standing behind him, bring your arms in under his
shoulders, grab the child's opposite hand with each of your arms, and tuck
them under his shoulders. Then stand off a little to the side so he can't
kick you.  You're not inflicting any physical pain, and he can't move. If
you want, you can take him to a corner and tell him he needs to stand there
for three minutes (or whatever interval you wish to use). That approach
hasn't worked for me, though, because my kids see it as a loss of face to
"give in" to physical coercion of that sort, plus the attention they're
recieving (physical contact) reinforces their defiant behavior.

> Does timeout count as a "natural consequence"?  If not, is it an acceptable
> "unnatural" consequence?

Timeout counts as a "natural consequence" only if used within a reinforcing
environment, in which case the punishment is actually the withdrawal of
reinforcement for a short period of time, rather than the administering of
pain. This is a "natural consequence" only in that society usually
withdraws reinforcement when we do something "bad". In practice I use
timeout primarily for things that do not have obvious "natural
consequences". If a child loves to eat and runs in the cafeteria to be
first in line, I bring him back and make him practice walking slowly to the
cafeteria. Now he's last in line. That's a natural consequence -- running
in the cafeteria delays your meal. Misbehavior in the cafeteria ends your
meal. Natural consequence. Consequently, the only time I have misbehavior
in the cafeteria is when a child has already eaten his meal and is looking
for something else to provide stimulation (such as, e.g., the reaction he
gets by saying something nasty about someone else's momma :-). At such a
time, THEN I use timeout.

>> that sort. All that I will say is this: there are other methods which work
>> and which do not require inflicting pain. In other words, spanking is not
>> necessary to raise courteous and obedient children.
>
> I'll agree with that.  I note that you do NOT make the converse statement
> that spanking will raise dis-courteous and dis-obedient children.
>
>> The most important thing to keep in mind about timeout is that you must do
>> it with a minimum of emotion and few words. Tell the kid what he needs to
>> ......
>> -- reducing one kid to the point of tears from frustration, even. Without a
>> single bit of physical pain being inflicted.
>
> At what point does concern over psychological pain over-ride physical pain?

When you see a child become very upset, then you step in and hug him and
comfort him. I do it, even, though I have to be careful (I can't really hug
the children, for instance, because in this city CPS is on a rampage --
they even fired one of their own caseworkers for "fondling" a girl when the
guy was actually trying to keep the girl from running out into the street).
Believe it or not, even my toughest street kid can become upset to the
point of tears. You may say that comforting him at this juncture is
reinforcing bad behavior. Me, I say I'd rather reinforce him crying than
reinforce him tearing up the room. Given those two ways of expressing
frustration and psychological pain, I'd rather reinforce the former. Such
expression of frustration usually happens quite some time after the
original behavior, anyhow, so I suspect that comforting an upset child is
not much of a reinforcement for the original behavior.

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.taronga.com   Dodson Elementary
 (713) 664-6446                             Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"