Great points Joline.<br><br>
I wonder if it counts as time-out if you are sitting next to your child and talking with her or him? I know many AP anti-time-outers (in the usual sense of the term) do separate their child from problematic situations for some down time, which they spend with their child, or let the child spend by her- or himself (though the child is not forced to do this).<br><br>
From my understanding of how time-out is meant to be carried out (according to Supernanny, which I assume to be a mainstream interpretation of how to do it), one is to plop one's child on a "nauty chair" or in whatever space has been chosen for the punishment, and to not offer any positive interaction with the child at all. She advocates looking the child in the eye, saying, "You've been very naughty! You are sitting here because you threw your blocks and I asked you not to. Someone might get hurt when we throw blocks around the house" (I'm not sure she offers the child an explanation, though). Anyway, this is followed by removing oneself from the situation (or, e.g., busying oneself doing dishes or engaging in some other activity). It is not a time for cuddles or love. That would be rewarding the child for bad behaviour, and thus reinforcing it, on her take. There are many cases of children crying out for their mom (or whoever) to come to them, and the children are left to cry because they are being punished.<br><br>
If it were only "you can't play with x anymore," why would the child be confined to a particular small space, and why would this be combined with the typical advice to not offer any "positive reinforcement" during the punishment? Were that the sole intent, the child could engage in some other activity.<br><br>
Whatever the case, yes, some children may experience it differently than others and this can make it far more harmful to some children and less so to others. It is not always easy to tell which child it will be most harmful to, and as I suggested earlier, I do think that even those children who typically take it as boring, but not so much as a deprivation of love, are apt to also feel it as the latter.<br><br>
In my own childhood, I did not take what was happening as neglect or emotional abuse, though I can now see that both applied. If you asked me, I'd say that my mom definitely didn't mean it when she called me an idiot and that it didn't bother me a whole lot (that's just how we talk in our family). Similarly, if asked why we never touch, I'd just say this was normal for our family and it was weird to always be clawing at each other, as some more intimate families did. Likewise with telling each other "I love you," I normalized that too, saying that we knew it to be true and that we showed our love in other ways (by buying gifts!) and that I appreciated these just as much. I agreed with these statements as a child, or at least pretended to believe in them (even to myself). This doesn't mean that I was saved from the negative effects of (minor) neglect and (minor) emotional abuse. That is akin to saying that a child who fends well and is not afraid to be left alone is not harmed by this and does not feel abandoned or unimportant because of it. Being left alone may be more harmful to some kids than to others, but it isn't a very good thing to do to any of them.<br><br>
I think there are far worse things than a relatively gently applied time out, but the power issues that occur during these make me uncomfortable and I feel a sense of shame for the child. Aside from love-withdrawal, there are also the more basic problems with punishment itself, which are additional reasons that make me disagree with the time out approach.
