#And it’s not like adhd is often doesn’t show before preschool because toddlers are not required to pay attention for a long time

[cam0mi1e]

so about my audhd assessment

I wasn’t diagnosed. But. Doctor said that i need to see a specialist. And generally it was kinda confusing. She said that I, like, almost qualify for autism, tho my mom probably said that all things that i said were bullshit. And she discarded adhd because i wasn’t neurotic enough?????? Even though i told her that I practically had meltdowns for 2 previous days. And all other symptoms are there. And she said that i just have anger issues??????? Even though emotional outbursts are a legit thing that adhders expirience???????????

I feel like she just forgot half the shit that i told her before? But she said that she’ll refer me to another specialist.

Honestly i just think that she disregarded my experiences because they’re “subjective ”, and maybe because she thought it might be a teenager thing. It felt like she just didn’t asknoveleged (how the fuck do i spell) things that i didn’t explicitly stated, like, in bold letters but with words. To be fair she might’ve had couple good points but it might be just because in my family lotsa people r similar to me and my mother’s opinion is just as subjective. By her words I didn’t have repetitive behaviours even though I literally rewatched same 3 cartoons all the time. And lined up and sorted toys, and preferred not to engage in imaginative play.

Tbh it’s just confused me more and i will cry when i get back home. Also that thing with ignoring my perception. And lying about letting me ask questions in the end of the sesh.:,,,(

Tldr: Self diagnosis rules. I know myself better and it was just an another case in support of that statement.

[ellymackay]

8 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready For The School-Sleep Routine

8 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready For The School-Sleep Routine Find more on: https://www.ellymackay.com

It happens every year. Summer feels like an endless stretch of open days and nights. Then suddenly, just as we’ve all gotten used to the freewheeling pace of summertime, the school year is right back upon us. My kids are gearing up to start school in another few weeks so I feel your pain.

It can be tempting for parents to bury their heads (and their toes) in the sand and hang on to the summertime routine right to the bitter end of kids’ vacation. But that makes for a pretty bumpy, conflict-filled, chaotic re-entry to the school year. It’s just a bad idea.

Instead, this year, why not try something different: a gradual, planned migration back into the school routine, with a focus on sleep. It takes just a little bit of planning and commitment. But the rewards can be great, for kids and parents.

Why the school-sleep transition matters so much

Every parent knows that having kids on a consistent sleep schedule means more order and less chaos and conflict, both morning and night. That sleep schedule delivers better rest for children, and less stress—and more restful sleep—for parents (Yea!).

But as we head into another school year, it’s worth a quick reminder just how much sleep matters to kids’ health, development, and academic performance:

Poor sleep increases kids’ social and behavioral problems

Not getting enough high-quality sleep affects areas of the brain that involve emotional regulation and response, as well as impulse control. There’s an abundant body of research that shows poor quality and insufficient sleep increase the risks of behavioral issues in children and teenagers. Among the most common behavioral problems in school-age kids and teens are:

Irritability

Aggression

Hyperactivity

Social withdrawal

Mood swings

These behavioral issues often lead to isolation and stigmatization in children. They can compromise children’s relationships with their friends, siblings, teachers, and parents. They also make it more difficult for kids to learn, and for kids to participate in groups and activities that contribute to their emotional, social and intellectual development.

I wrote recently about an emerging theory among some scientists that what is diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may often be a sleep problem related to disruptions in circadian rhythms.

In teenagers, lack of sleep increases the chances they’ll engage in dangerous behavior, from fighting, to drinking and drug use, to texting while driving.

And there are growing links being discovered between poor sleep and bullying in children and adolescents. Both younger kids and teenagers may be more likely to act as bullies when they are sleep deprived.

Poor sleep is linked to academic issues

You’ve heard me talk a lot about the links between sleep, learning, and memory. Poor sleep compromises the brain’s ability to process and store memory, as well as to learn new information. When kids don’t get enough sleep, their academic performance suffers:

Poor sleep is associated with lower grades and lower standardized test scores

Not getting enough sleep increases absenteeism in school children

Lack of sleep hinders kids’ ability to concentrate and focus

As parents, we have high hopes—and expectations—for our children. We want them to excel to the best of their abilities in school. Without enough sleep, they simply can’t perform at their best.

Poor sleep raises children’s mental and physical health risks

This can be hard for parents to hear, but it’s important for them to know: there no time in life when we get a “free pass” on sleep, and that includes childhood.

The sleep patterns we develop in childhood help set the stage for sleep and health throughout our lives. Poor sleep in children is associated with many of the same health risks that we see in adults, including:

Obesity

High blood pressure and other types of cardiovascular disease

Metabolic disorder, and type 2 diabetes

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics looked at the sleep patterns of more than 4,500 9-10 year olds, and found that children who slept more had lower BMI, less insulin resistance, and lower blood sugar.

And a just-released study (again, in Pediatrics) showed that adolescents who got more sleep had lower blood sugar, smaller waist circumference (an important marker of cardiometabolic health), lower cholesterol, and less fat mass.

It’s not only children’s physical health, but mental health that can suffer when kids don’t get enough high-quality rest. Research shows children who don’t get enough sound sleep are less adept at processing and regulating emotions, and more likely to develop emotional disorders, including depression and anxiety.

Here’s how to get your kids on a school-friendly sleep schedule

Now that we’ve talked about the importance of their sleep routine—and the serious consequences for not sleeping well—let’s dive into some strategies for making the transition from summer to school year.

Organize a game plan.

That’s in part what you’re doing right now, by reading this article—so good for you! Adjusting sleep schedules (whether your child’s or your own) is always easier and more effective when you’re working methodically and thoughtfully with a plan. Improvising at bedtime is a prescription for frustration and chaos, especially when it comes to kids. Before you actually start making moves to change your child’s sleep routine, map out your process, and get organized. And take a few moments to visualize the process as it successfully unfolds—that mindfulness step can make a big difference!

Keep chronotypes in mind.

I have many patients who come to my office full of frustration about their children’s sleep habits, and the challenges of establishing a real sleep routine—especially when there are kids of different ages in the household. I always remind them: your child’s sleep biology is different than yours, and different from their siblings, too. No two children are exactly alike in their sleep preferences. And children move through different chronotypes as they age and develop from childhood through adolescence.

Toddlers and preschoolers are early-to-wake, early-to-bed Lions, who need naps to supplement nightly rest

Grade school and middle school kids are middle-of-the-road Bears, who sleep most closely in sync with the solar day and night

Teens are night-preferring Wolves, who are zombies first thing in the morning and become increasingly active and alert in the later stages of the day

You can learn all about your own and your family members’ chronotypes in my book, The Power of When. Or just take the quiz at www.thepowerofwhenquiz.com.

It’s especially useful for parents to keep chronotype in mind when they have children in transitional stages of development. Kids move from Lions to Bears sometime around age six or seven, at about the first grade. Teens transition from Bears to Wolves at the time of puberty, which can be as early as 11 or 12, during the middle-school years. If you’re a parent with a child in these age ranges, keep in mind you may be dealing with a new chronotype—and that means new sleep preferences to work with.

The timing of the daily school schedule doesn’t consider children’s and teenagers’ chronotypes—and especially for teens, sleep suffers as a result. But parents can find insight and useful knowledge in understanding their children’s biological sleep drives, and working to create sleep routines that align with those biologically-driven preferences wherever possible.

Know how much sleep your child needs.

In order to set up a nourishing sleep schedule, you need to identify the right amount of sleep for your child. Every child’s sleep needs are different, so it’s important for parents to test and adjust sleep amounts, based on your own child’s behavior and performance. A cranky pre-schooler who is sleeping 9 hours a night may need 10. A low-energy teenager who’s sleeping 8 hours a night may need 9. Use these numbers as a guideline to work with your child’s individual sleep needs:

Pre-schoolers: 10-13 hours a night. For some children this age, 8-9 hours may be enough, while others may need as much as 14. Many of these children will need to nap to meet their sleep needs.

Grade-schoolers: 9-11 hours a night. Some grade school age children will be okay with 8 hours, while others may need as much as 12.

Teenagers: 8-10 hours a night. Because they’re more independent (and tending to stay up later) teens’ sleep can be harder for parents to track. Developing open, honest communication with teens about sleep can make a big difference.

Use your child’s wake up time to set their bedtime.

Numbers don’t lie. If your grade school child needs to be up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for school, and he needs 9.5 hours of sleep, that means a bedtime of 9 p.m. Your first step is to determine a realistic wake up time for your child, one that includes time for breakfast, washing, dressing, and getting packed up for school. Once you have that number, use the guidelines above to work backward to identify your child’s bedtime. You may need to do some testing and adjusting to find just the right set of times.

Gradually adjust your child’s bedtime and waketime.

Whatever your child’s summer sleep schedule is currently, it probably looks different than the school-year schedule you’ve just calculated. If it didn’t, none of us parents would have any trouble making this back-to-school transition! Maybe your child has been sleeping in on these warm, relaxed summer mornings. I’ll be there have been a whole lot of throw-bedtime-out-the-window evenings, to watch movies, linger around a campfire, or play flashlight tag in the backyard with neighborhood kids.

You’re about to ask your child to adopt a different schedule than the one they’re currently accustomed to. Asking them to make a big change, all at once, on the evening before the first day of school, is a recipe for tears and stress for parent and child. Instead, do it incrementally over 10-14 days. Without fuss or fanfare, pull back bedtimes and wake-up times by 5-10 minutes a day, or 10-15 minutes every few days.

Quiet and darken the pre-bedtime hour.

During the next couple of weeks, while you’re slowly adjusting your child’s bedtime and wake time, also start to implement a Power Down Hour in the evenings. This is an hour before bed for quiet activity, away from bright light (ideally, including the TV), to help your child unwind.  This is time for the body’s natural progression toward sleep kick-in, including the all-important nighttime rise in melatonin production. As with bedtime, you don’t have to start with a full hour all at once. Build this quiet, low-light hour gradually, in 10 or 15-minute increments. Because so many of us are transitioning kids’ bedtimes while the sun is still shining well into the evening, you’ll may need to start having your kids come in from outside a bit earlier, to avoid that sunlight stimulation close to bedtime.

Get plenty of morning sun and activity.

The flipside to curtailing your child’s evening sun exposure? Right now is a great time for your child to be getting plenty of morning sunshine, and physical activity. This early-in-the-day light exposure and physical exertion will boost your child’s energy for the day, helping them feel more tired and ready for bed at night. Morning light exposure also reinforces circadian rhythms to an earlier sleep-wake cycle, which is where your children are headed when school starts.

Adjust dinner time and bedtime snacks.

These changes to bedtime may mean parents need to adjust dinnertime as well. If your family is anything like mine, you tend to eat dinner a bit later in the summer. There’s so much to do—and so much light to do it all in—that a later dinner feels natural for many people. For kids, as well as adults, trying to fall asleep on a very full stomach can be difficult. An activated digestive system, a revved-up metabolism, and the corresponding rise body temperature can mean it takes longer for kids to fall asleep. Give your kids enough time after dinner, before bedtime, to digest.

Of course, kids wouldn’t be kids if they weren’t looking for a pre-bed snack. There’s nothing wrong with a light snack before bed. Often, it’s helpful to sleep, provided it’s not too large and high in calories, or filled with sugar or caffeine, all of which can stimulate your child just when you most need her to relax.

Let this be the summer that ends with a smooth, tear and tantrum-free transition from the anything-goes summer routine to the buckle-down start of the school year. You’ll feel better for it, and your child will sleep better from day one of this academic year. That’s a great place to begin.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post 8 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready For The School-Sleep Routine appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Your Guide to Better Sleep https://www.thesleepdoctor.com/2018/08/21/8-ways-to-help-your-child-get-ready-for-the-school-sleep-routine/

from Elly Mackay - Feed https://www.ellymackay.com/2018/08/21/8-ways-to-help-your-child-get-ready-for-the-school-sleep-routine/

[thomasalwyndavis]

8 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready For The School-Sleep Routine

8 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready For The School-Sleep Routine was first seen on Thomas Alwyn Davis

It happens every year. Summer feels like an endless stretch of open days and nights. Then suddenly, just as we’ve all gotten used to the freewheeling pace of summertime, the school year is right back upon us. My kids are gearing up to start school in another few weeks so I feel your pain.

It can be tempting for parents to bury their heads (and their toes) in the sand and hang on to the summertime routine right to the bitter end of kids’ vacation. But that makes for a pretty bumpy, conflict-filled, chaotic re-entry to the school year. It’s just a bad idea.

Instead, this year, why not try something different: a gradual, planned migration back into the school routine, with a focus on sleep. It takes just a little bit of planning and commitment. But the rewards can be great, for kids and parents.

Why the school-sleep transition matters so much

Every parent knows that having kids on a consistent sleep schedule means more order and less chaos and conflict, both morning and night. That sleep schedule delivers better rest for children, and less stress—and more restful sleep—for parents (Yea!).

But as we head into another school year, it’s worth a quick reminder just how much sleep matters to kids’ health, development, and academic performance:

Poor sleep increases kids’ social and behavioral problems

Not getting enough high-quality sleep affects areas of the brain that involve emotional regulation and response, as well as impulse control. There’s an abundant body of research that shows poor quality and insufficient sleep increase the risks of behavioral issues in children and teenagers. Among the most common behavioral problems in school-age kids and teens are:

Irritability

Aggression

Hyperactivity

Social withdrawal

Mood swings

These behavioral issues often lead to isolation and stigmatization in children. They can compromise children’s relationships with their friends, siblings, teachers, and parents. They also make it more difficult for kids to learn, and for kids to participate in groups and activities that contribute to their emotional, social and intellectual development.

I wrote recently about an emerging theory among some scientists that what is diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may often be a sleep problem related to disruptions in circadian rhythms.

In teenagers, lack of sleep increases the chances they’ll engage in dangerous behavior, from fighting, to drinking and drug use, to texting while driving.

And there are growing links being discovered between poor sleep and bullying in children and adolescents. Both younger kids and teenagers may be more likely to act as bullies when they are sleep deprived.

Poor sleep is linked to academic issues

You’ve heard me talk a lot about the links between sleep, learning, and memory. Poor sleep compromises the brain’s ability to process and store memory, as well as to learn new information. When kids don’t get enough sleep, their academic performance suffers:

Poor sleep is associated with lower grades and lower standardized test scores

Not getting enough sleep increases absenteeism in school children

Lack of sleep hinders kids’ ability to concentrate and focus

As parents, we have high hopes—and expectations—for our children. We want them to excel to the best of their abilities in school. Without enough sleep, they simply can’t perform at their best.

Poor sleep raises children’s mental and physical health risks

This can be hard for parents to hear, but it’s important for them to know: there no time in life when we get a “free pass” on sleep, and that includes childhood.

The sleep patterns we develop in childhood help set the stage for sleep and health throughout our lives. Poor sleep in children is associated with many of the same health risks that we see in adults, including:

Obesity

High blood pressure and other types of cardiovascular disease

Metabolic disorder, and type 2 diabetes

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics looked at the sleep patterns of more than 4,500 9-10 year olds, and found that children who slept more had lower BMI, less insulin resistance, and lower blood sugar.

And a just-released study (again, in Pediatrics) showed that adolescents who got more sleep had lower blood sugar, smaller waist circumference (an important marker of cardiometabolic health), lower cholesterol, and less fat mass.

It’s not only children’s physical health, but mental health that can suffer when kids don’t get enough high-quality rest. Research shows children who don’t get enough sound sleep are less adept at processing and regulating emotions, and more likely to develop emotional disorders, including depression and anxiety.

Here’s how to get your kids on a school-friendly sleep schedule

Now that we’ve talked about the importance of their sleep routine—and the serious consequences for not sleeping well—let’s dive into some strategies for making the transition from summer to school year.

Organize a game plan.

That’s in part what you’re doing right now, by reading this article—so good for you! Adjusting sleep schedules (whether your child’s or your own) is always easier and more effective when you’re working methodically and thoughtfully with a plan. Improvising at bedtime is a prescription for frustration and chaos, especially when it comes to kids. Before you actually start making moves to change your child’s sleep routine, map out your process, and get organized. And take a few moments to visualize the process as it successfully unfolds—that mindfulness step can make a big difference!

Keep chronotypes in mind.

I have many patients who come to my office full of frustration about their children’s sleep habits, and the challenges of establishing a real sleep routine—especially when there are kids of different ages in the household. I always remind them: your child’s sleep biology is different than yours, and different from their siblings, too. No two children are exactly alike in their sleep preferences. And children move through different chronotypes as they age and develop from childhood through adolescence.

Toddlers and preschoolers are early-to-wake, early-to-bed Lions, who need naps to supplement nightly rest

Grade school and middle school kids are middle-of-the-road Bears, who sleep most closely in sync with the solar day and night

Teens are night-preferring Wolves, who are zombies first thing in the morning and become increasingly active and alert in the later stages of the day

You can learn all about your own and your family members’ chronotypes in my book, The Power of When. Or just take the quiz at www.thepowerofwhenquiz.com.

It’s especially useful for parents to keep chronotype in mind when they have children in transitional stages of development. Kids move from Lions to Bears sometime around age six or seven, at about the first grade. Teens transition from Bears to Wolves at the time of puberty, which can be as early as 11 or 12, during the middle-school years. If you’re a parent with a child in these age ranges, keep in mind you may be dealing with a new chronotype—and that means new sleep preferences to work with.

The timing of the daily school schedule doesn’t consider children’s and teenagers’ chronotypes—and especially for teens, sleep suffers as a result. But parents can find insight and useful knowledge in understanding their children’s biological sleep drives, and working to create sleep routines that align with those biologically-driven preferences wherever possible.

Know how much sleep your child needs.

In order to set up a nourishing sleep schedule, you need to identify the right amount of sleep for your child. Every child’s sleep needs are different, so it’s important for parents to test and adjust sleep amounts, based on your own child’s behavior and performance. A cranky pre-schooler who is sleeping 9 hours a night may need 10. A low-energy teenager who’s sleeping 8 hours a night may need 9. Use these numbers as a guideline to work with your child’s individual sleep needs:

Pre-schoolers: 10-13 hours a night. For some children this age, 8-9 hours may be enough, while others may need as much as 14. Many of these children will need to nap to meet their sleep needs.

Grade-schoolers: 9-11 hours a night. Some grade school age children will be okay with 8 hours, while others may need as much as 12.

Teenagers: 8-10 hours a night. Because they’re more independent (and tending to stay up later) teens’ sleep can be harder for parents to track. Developing open, honest communication with teens about sleep can make a big difference.

Use your child’s wake up time to set their bedtime.

Numbers don’t lie. If your grade school child needs to be up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for school, and he needs 9.5 hours of sleep, that means a bedtime of 9 p.m. Your first step is to determine a realistic wake up time for your child, one that includes time for breakfast, washing, dressing, and getting packed up for school. Once you have that number, use the guidelines above to work backward to identify your child’s bedtime. You may need to do some testing and adjusting to find just the right set of times.

Gradually adjust your child’s bedtime and waketime.

Whatever your child’s summer sleep schedule is currently, it probably looks different than the school-year schedule you’ve just calculated. If it didn’t, none of us parents would have any trouble making this back-to-school transition! Maybe your child has been sleeping in on these warm, relaxed summer mornings. I’ll be there have been a whole lot of throw-bedtime-out-the-window evenings, to watch movies, linger around a campfire, or play flashlight tag in the backyard with neighborhood kids.

You’re about to ask your child to adopt a different schedule than the one they’re currently accustomed to. Asking them to make a big change, all at once, on the evening before the first day of school, is a recipe for tears and stress for parent and child. Instead, do it incrementally over 10-14 days. Without fuss or fanfare, pull back bedtimes and wake-up times by 5-10 minutes a day, or 10-15 minutes every few days.

Quiet and darken the pre-bedtime hour.

During the next couple of weeks, while you’re slowly adjusting your child’s bedtime and wake time, also start to implement a Power Down Hour in the evenings. This is an hour before bed for quiet activity, away from bright light (ideally, including the TV), to help your child unwind.  This is time for the body’s natural progression toward sleep kick-in, including the all-important nighttime rise in melatonin production. As with bedtime, you don’t have to start with a full hour all at once. Build this quiet, low-light hour gradually, in 10 or 15-minute increments. Because so many of us are transitioning kids’ bedtimes while the sun is still shining well into the evening, you’ll may need to start having your kids come in from outside a bit earlier, to avoid that sunlight stimulation close to bedtime.

Get plenty of morning sun and activity.

The flipside to curtailing your child’s evening sun exposure? Right now is a great time for your child to be getting plenty of morning sunshine, and physical activity. This early-in-the-day light exposure and physical exertion will boost your child’s energy for the day, helping them feel more tired and ready for bed at night. Morning light exposure also reinforces circadian rhythms to an earlier sleep-wake cycle, which is where your children are headed when school starts.

Adjust dinner time and bedtime snacks.

These changes to bedtime may mean parents need to adjust dinnertime as well. If your family is anything like mine, you tend to eat dinner a bit later in the summer. There’s so much to do—and so much light to do it all in—that a later dinner feels natural for many people. For kids, as well as adults, trying to fall asleep on a very full stomach can be difficult. An activated digestive system, a revved-up metabolism, and the corresponding rise body temperature can mean it takes longer for kids to fall asleep. Give your kids enough time after dinner, before bedtime, to digest.

Of course, kids wouldn’t be kids if they weren’t looking for a pre-bed snack. There’s nothing wrong with a light snack before bed. Often, it’s helpful to sleep, provided it’s not too large and high in calories, or filled with sugar or caffeine, all of which can stimulate your child just when you most need her to relax.

Let this be the summer that ends with a smooth, tear and tantrum-free transition from the anything-goes summer routine to the buckle-down start of the school year. You’ll feel better for it, and your child will sleep better from day one of this academic year. That’s a great place to begin.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post 8 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready For The School-Sleep Routine appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Blog | Your Guide to Better Sleep https://www.thesleepdoctor.com/2018/08/21/8-ways-to-help-your-child-get-ready-for-the-school-sleep-routine/

from Thomas Alwyn Davis - Feed https://thomasalwyndavis.com/8-ways-to-help-your-child-get-ready-for-the-school-sleep-routine/

[childcarewonderland-blog]

Common Time-Out Mistakes and How to Solve Them

Where did time-out come from?

Time-outs became popularized by reality shows like Supernanny, but the technique was first developed in the 1960s as a more humane alternative to harsh punishments that were common then. Before Arthur Staats, Ph.D., now retired from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, came up with the concept, teachers and principals routinely smacked children with rulers, and parents spanked or whipped their kids with switches. Now—at a time when a video of a kid being paddled at school goes viral because it’s so shocking—most parents are embracing a more gentle approach. After all, decades of research have shown that children who have been routinely spanked are more likely to be aggressive when they get older, as well as to suffer from anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

Time-Out Mistakes

1. Using Them Too Often

Despite popular belief, time-outs aren’t supposed to be about getting children to think through their misdeeds. “A time-out is primarily a ‘Let’s stop things from getting worse’ strategy,” says Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D., a Parents advisor and author of Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids. Dr. Kennedy-Moore explains, “In the history of the universe, no children have ever gone to their rooms to ‘Think about what you did!’ They’re thinking about their parents’ meanness. The learning starts after the time-out, when you can say, ‘Okay, let’s try again.’ ”

2. Giving Kids Attention During Time-Out

A time-out is essentially a mild consequence. Young kids crave attention, and even negative attention may suffice, explains Dr. Kennedy-Moore. In fact, “time-out” was originally short for “time-out from positive reinforcement,” because Dr. Staats felt that paying attention to a child’s misbehavior can encourage him to misbehave more. “To me, time-out isn’t a naughty chair or a corner of the room,” says Dr. Brown. “It’s simply the lack of parental attention for a short period of time that lets a child see that his behavior led to losing attention instead of getting it.”

3. Using Them for the Wrong Reason

Research from Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, has found that time-outs work best on young children who are oppositional and defiant by hitting or intentionally doing the opposite of what you ask, but only if you first try milder responses most of the time. When a child is put in a time-out for different types of problems or if it’s used too often for oppositional defiance, his behavior may get worse, says study coauthor Robert E. Larzelere, Ph.D., professor of family science. Little kids who are just whining about the mashed potatoes or negotiating for more iPad time respond better to other approaches. In those types of situations, consider these tactics instead:

Alternatives to Time-Out

Identify and reinforce positive opposite behaviors, such as playing gently and speaking kindly, suggests Mandi Silverman, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist in the ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute, in New York City. Praise or offer rewards for these behaviors, saying, “Wow, you are playing so nicely with your toys” or giving your child stars or stickers.

Use when-then statements. Instead of telling your child, “We can stay at the playground for five more minutes, but only if you put your shoes back on,” you can motivate her to cooperate by saying, “When you put your shoes back on, then we can stay at the playground for five more minutes.”

Strike when the iron is cold. After everyone has had a chance to cool down, you can explain, “We don’t throw toys because throwing toys is dangerous.”

The New and Improved Time-Out Technique

If you ask parents how they use time-outs, you’ll probably hear a wide variety of answers, ranging from having a naughty chair to keeping kids in their room. Since Dr. Staats first wrote about time-outs, researchers have changed them for the better, so they’re both gentler and more effective.

Step 1: Give one clear warning. The best study found that a single non-repetitive warning before every time-out can reduce the number of time-outs needed by 74 percent, says Dr. Larzelere. If your child doesn’t start cooperating within five seconds, proceed with the time-out.

Step 2: Announce a time-out. You might wait until your child is relatively calm, but briefly reiterate what he did wrong (“No hitting. Time-out.”), and escort him to a naughty chair. (Many experts advise against sending your child to his room, because he’ll have toys, books, and other fun things there.) Resist the urge to lecture him. It’s okay to offer an explanation before the time-out or after it, but not during it. If you say things like, “I’ve told you about this a thousand times,” “Now you are paying the price,” or “I hope you are thinking about what you did,” you are giving your child attention rather than removing it—and any attention, even negative attention, can act as a reward rather than a consequence.

Step 3: Start the clock. Dr. Staats originally suggested keeping kids in a time-out until they stopped fussing, even if that took a half hour. Today, many parents use the “one minute for every year of a child’s age” rule. However, recent research done by Timothy Vollmer, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, shows that even brief time-outs of one to three minutes are effective, at least for children ages 3 to 5. Setting the clock for longer may make it harder to get your child to sit in a time-out in the future.

Step 4: Make it boring. During the time-out, do not talk to your child or make eye contact. Staying silent may require some practice, especially if your child says things like, “You are the worst mom in the world!” or asks questions like, “Why are you doing this to me?” and “Can I have a glass of water?” No matter what your child says or asks during the time-out, ignore it.

Step 5: When the timer goes off, call an end to the time-out. It doesn’t matter if your child is still fidgety, sassy, or crying. Once the timer goes off, the time-out is over, Dr. Vollmer says. How will you know if time-outs are working? If you start following these steps, within one to three weeks you should need to employ them less and less often. Says Dr. Larzelere, “When you call for a time-out and mean what you say, children will learn to listen.”

Click here for more:

http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/discipline/time-out/common-time-out-mistakes-and-how-to-solve-them/