By Charles Stampul
Your child is losing it and won’t do what you ask. Instead of giving him a timeout, try a reset.
Timeouts are not effective, because they put all the responsibility of changing the situation on the child. The reset, in contrast, meets the child half way and allows him to act in a better way with no feelings of shame, embarrassment or regret.
You both want to turn the clock back 5 minutes. Why not just pretend to do it. Ask your child if he wants to start again. If he agrees, leave the room. Take a deep breath to calm down if you need to. Return calm and smiling. Greet your child as if you haven’t seen him in a while. Make a joke. Say something absurd. When he is smiling and laughing ask him again to do what you wanted.
Timeouts condition children to stew in negative emotions and dig in on bad decisions. Resets condition children to quickly correct bad feelings and actions. If the episode needs to be discussed, you can do this when smiles have replaced frowns and the child is cooperating.
The benefits of the reset over the timeout, go beyond the immediate situation and the childhood years. Mastering the fight or flight response can be the difference between success or failure, good fortune and tragedy. It can mean avoiding a car accident, or physical altercation. It can mean not escalating a personal conflict with a boss or business partner.
Next time your child is not cooperating, try a reset instead of a timeout. You will be amazed how effective it can be.
It’s time for all of us at the reset button
what total BS
Perfect. No consequences for bad behavior. No responsibility.
That is what you will be conditioning in the child.
Using resets instead of timeouts does not mean no consequences. Not doing what a parent asks is not necessarily punishable behavior. Most often it is not.
remember… the child runs the show.