Why "time-out" is NOT suggested as a means to stop children from doing something

Interviewer: Julie Ross is the author of Practical Parenting and has been running parenting workshops for about 18 years now. Hey, Julie. Good morning. Nice to see you.
Julie: Good morning.
Interviewer: So let’s go right into some of the things that parents used to try and discipline their kids. They at least gain control time-outs. All right, this is our very popular concept and tool, but do you think it works?
Julie: I don’t think it works. (1) I think it doesn’t work because we can’t be consistent with it throughout a child’s life-time. And at some point, the child says, I don’t have to sit here; I am not gonna do it anymore.
Interviewer: So in other words, especially when you are dealing with three- or four-year-olds, the concept of them sitting down and really thinking about what they have done is not gonna sink in.
Julie: It’s not gonna sink in. And historically, it was used as an alternative to corporal punishment and as such yeah, but as a modern tool for parents, it’s not such a good idea.
Interviewer: Basically, set the boundaries and limits ahead of time, and you won’t have to get to where you have to use a time-out.
Julie: That’s exactly right.
Interviewer: Don’t say "No" all the time, we heard in the piece there. Try not to, you know, focus on the negative, accentuate the positive. (2) So let’s use an example here, my son is playing with the safety pin in the electric socket. I am probably gonna say, "Jack, no, don’t do that."
Julie: Right.
Interviewer: What’s a better way to go about it?
Julie: (2) Well, I actually believe that "no" should be used on those occasions. It should be our word that we can stop our children on a dime with. But if they get desensitized to it, if it’s "No, don’t climb on that; no, honey that’s a no no". Then when you say: No, don’t stick that into the socket, they are not gonna be able to listen to it. So only on rare occasions when it’s absolutely important to use the word: no.
Interviewer: That’s exactly right. What about the I-message? In other words, the kid makes a mess, instead of saying: you made a mess and look what you did. Turn it into an I-message, and give me an example of that.
Julie: I am a big believer in I-messages, and they sound like this, when you throw the ball in the house, I feel annoyed because it could break something. I would like you to play with something else instead.
Interviewer: Why isn’t the child gonna say, well, if you feel annoyed, get over it, you know, I mean, I thought, that it kind of makes more impact, or has more impact on the kid if you make it about them, and not you?
Julie: (3) Well, it can, but it doesn’t preserve their sense of self-esteem in theprocess. So what we wanna do is we wanna make it about us in terms of setting the rules, as parents, we are supposed to be the leaders in the house. So we set the rules. And that I-message does refer to I am the parent, I am in charge, and I am comfortable being in charge.
Interviewer: Tell me how was this next concept in this which was mentioned at piece two, and that is the "when and then" rule—that the best example I can think of, your children are eating dinner but they wanna go out and play. OK, so, a lot of people will say, hey, if you eat all of the food on your plate, you can go out and play. What’s wrong with that?
Julie: Children hear the word "if" as a challenge, as a threat. And they will rise to that challenge. It’s like—Really? If? OK, let’s just test that out. But the either-or, or the when-then choices, when you’ve done these order things. So that it’s a work first, play later. When you’ve finished the meal, then you can go outside. When you have brushed your teeth, then we can read books.
Interviewer: So they don’t hear the word "if" as an incentive. (4) They see it as a challenge and they are gonna rebel against it.
Julie: You bet.
Interviewer: What about when people would say something like, they end a (sentence), parents will end a sentence with OK. Like if you clean up your room, um, we will get ice-cream, OK? Why is that wrong?
Julie: When an amount of power is given to the child, the parent is asking the child’s permission. We are gonna go out, OK? And the child thinks, oh, well, I have the right to say yes or no.
Interviewer: Then the child is in control.
Julie: Yeah, absolutely.
Interviewer: (5) What age group are you talking about these lessons for, I mean, is this working with three-year-olds as well as fourteen-year-olds?
Julie: You bet, in fact, I have a son who is thirteen. And if I use an I-message with him, he is playing on the computer and is delaying doing his homework and I say to him, Daniel, when you play on the computer... He says OK, mom, I don’t have to get through it, because he’s heard the consistent language all the way through his life.
Interviewer: We should ask for emails on this, and get you back here in one day, and just go through, and there will be about a million of them. Julie, thanks very much.
Julie: Thank you.
Interviewer: I appreciate it.