Kaiser – time out

I think that timeout is something that a lot of educators use but they don’t think they’re using it because they don’t have that specific timeout chair.  But that’s not really how I identify timeout.  I identify timeout as asking a child to do something they don’t want to do so that if they’re engaged in the block area and they hit a child in the block area and they’re knocking over all the blocks and you say to them, “You need to go look at a book. You need to calm down.  Go look at a book.”  Or “You need to calm down why don’t you go to the quiet area or why don’t you draw.” Why do we expect this non-compliant child to go, oh ok.  I don’t really want to be here and I’ll just trot off to the book area. So now what do you do?  Do you spend 20 minutes convincing him that he needs to go to look at a book?  Or do you ignore him when he says no and just forget about it because you don’t want to engage in that kind of battle?  Or do you pick him up and move him?  And either way, what are you really teaching the child?   

So I think teachers really need to recognize the difference between if the child is engaged in that kind of play in the block area that they say to them, you know, “I think you’re having a hard time here.  Why don’t we go look at a book?”  Or “Why don’t we see what markers we have in the drawing corner?” So that it’s something that he’s being supported in and then once you’re there and he’s calm and you have a teachable moment, because you’ve got to remember the importance of teachable moments, then you can say to him, “What happened there?  How are you feeling?  What else can you do?” and you can help identify whether or not that behaviour was a result of not getting, you know, wanting something that he couldn’t obtain.  Or wanting not to do something that his friends were asking him to do or maybe just wanting to make it more exciting and change the level of stimulation.