DCP doing timeouts for 18 months+

[hparsh]

Do any of your DCPs do timeouts so young? Mine starts them at around 18 months, sometimes younger. I don't think I like it. They claim my son doesn't get put into timeout, but DH and I have witnessed other kids his age sitting in TO, sometimes crying their brains out.

[caenach]

No, they don't do timeouts at all, really. The closest they get to that is sometimes taking a child having a fullout meltdown to another room where they won't, you know, throw a table at another child or something...but the child is always supervised/with an adult when that's going down.

Now, I don't think timeouts are the Worst Evil Ever. They're not a technique I'm interested in using, or having anybody use with DD, but they clearly work for some people. And, obviously, as DD grows older and goes out into the world more and more, she's likely to run into teachers and group leaders who use discipline techniques that I haven't, you know, pre-approved! So I suppose it really depends on whether or not you think the timeout technique is ok at certain ages or not ok at all.

The bigger issue, for me, would be knowing that you can trust your DCP to be honest with you about how they're disciplining your child and to follow your wishes in terms of how they discipline your child. It doesn't sound, to me, like you totally trust them in that way. That's a bigger warning sign to me!

[Girlprof]

I agree that the trust issue here is much bigger than the time outs. Our DCP does "time outs" starting around 12 months, which I couldn't imagine. But then I hung around enough to see what was really happening. For them "time out" is a label for a lot of techniques - really anything that involves non-voluntary separation of one of the children from toys/friends that the child would prefer to be with. I'm not really expressing this well, but what I mean is, once I saw what was actually happening, I was totally fine with it.

[nextcommercial]

I don't do an actual 'time out". As in "go sit in time out". But, if they (even a 12 month old) is throwing playdough on the floor, they have to leave the playdough table. If they are having a huge meltdown and kicking everybody within reach. (that's actually never happened) I'd remove the kicking child from the other kids.

It's more of a consequense than a time out. They can go back to the playdough in a while. But, not right now because they weren't using it correctly.

It's just part of life. We don't crash our bikes, we don't throw our food, we don't throw stuffed animals at the ceiling fan. Those things all have a consequense. If you really WANT to ride the bikes, you'd better use them the right way, because there is always another child who would love to have that bike.

[RockStarMom]

I don't do timeouts either, and I wouldn't use a DCP that used them...especially that young.