I work at a preschool in the afternoons, and this has led me a conclusion:
The “time-out” system is flawed.
Shocker! Let me explain.
I work with the two-year-olds, which, in the afternoons, combine with the one-year-olds. So typically there are four or five kids in my room at the end of the day, ranging from just turned one to nearly three. They are all at different levels as far as speech, listening, sharing, etc., though not a one of them is fully potty-trained (they’d move on to the next room if they were).
Yesterday I was working with a little boy, we’ll call him K. But that’s not what I call him in my mind. In my mind, I call him the Cooler King, after Steve McQueen’s character in The Great Escape. You’ll soon see why.
K is probably our most verbal child, and I’m pretty sure the oldest. He’s a sweetheart, but there’s one catch: he’s the LOUDEST CHILD ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH! This kid has the lung capacity to be the next Luciano Pavarotti…or to blow up hot water bottles til they burst.
Yesterday, he and V, another little boy who’s just barely two, both wanted to play with the same truck. It’s a cool truck, too, so I can understand why. K took the truck from V, resulting in V’s indignation.
“K,” I said, “V was playing with the truck. Give it back to him and play with another toy; you can have a turn when he’s done.”
K: “NOOOOO!”
Me: “K, you need to listen to the teacher. You have five seconds, or you’ll have to sit in time-out. 1…”
K:”NOOOOOO!”
Me: “2…”
K: “I DON’T WANT TIME-OUT!”
Me: “3…”
K: “SHUT UP!”
My mind: “Cooler, twenty days.”
My voice: “K, we don’t say ’shut up’ to our teacher. Come sit in time-out!”
K: “NOOOOOO! I DON’T WANT TIME-OUT! I DON’T WANT IT! I DON’T WANT IT!”
This went on for about 7 minutes: about every fifteen seconds, K would shout either “NOOOOO!” or “I DON’T WANT IT!”. At the seven-minute mark (he would’ve been out much sooner, but he was still shouting), after many admonitions to stop shouting and sit quietly in the time-out chair, K suddenly grew quiet. “Super,” I thought, “He’s calming down!” I turned away for a moment to tie another kiddo’s shoes and felt movement behind me. I turned around again and looked.
It was K. Sneaky child that he is, he decided that time-out would be more tolerable if he had a toy with him. So he snuck over and chose…a playground-sized ball. Way to go, K. I can’t even see that in your hand, nooooo.
(A side note here: These kids stick together. I’ve seen two year olds start “prison ministries”, where they aid and abet timed-out ones to obtain toys, snacks, and two-year-old gibberish counseling. Serious!)
Me: “K, we don’t play with toys in time-out. Give it here. Now sit quietly and you can play in a minute.”
K: “NOOOOOOOO! I DON’T LIKE TIME-OUT! I DON’T WANT IT!….” etc.
Me: “We’ve been over that, kiddo, now sit!”
That was the first of four times over the next 10-12 minutes that I confiscated toys from K, still in time-out (given the fact that he was still shouting at the top of his lungs every fifteen seconds. This kid would’ve been great at the Ephesian riot in the book of Acts!) I was starting to feel a little like Inspector Javert from Les Miserables: “For heaven’s sake, the guy’s in for petty theft…for 19 years, cause he keeps busting out! Gimme a break!”
Finally the shouting stopped, and as I confiscated the fourth toy, K said in a very repentant little voice, “I’m sorry!”
He sat still for about a minute, then I let him out and he came over, hugged me, and started apologising. Awww…
Although this story does bring up one solution to kids voluntarily getting out of time-out: at the program my sister works at, the time-out chair in the two-year-olds’ room is a restaurant-style highchair, complete with safety belt. Genius.
