40+FAB Blog

Parenting is one of the toughest jobs that anyone can get. You are tasked with raising up other human beings to be the best they can be in your home and the larger society. As cute as they can be, the reality is that children will get on your last nerve!

There is always a tussle of wills and a struggle for power between the parent and the child. This tension led me to study how best to raise my kids. I discovered that when a child loses their temper, the parent needs to stay calm and deal with it. If the parent does lose their temper and shows it, the experts says the child would feel like they have gained the upper hand and would always wind up that parent to the point of losing their cool.

This is where the trick of ‘time out’ is applied. It is as much for the parent as it is for the child. When a child goes into their tantrum, time out is a way for you both to step away from the tension of the situation and let things cool out before addressing them. The child is sent to a quiet place or room where they are left by themselves to sit and be quiet. It takes a bit of consistency and practice to get the child to abide by it, but when they yield to it, it works like a charm.

There are other areas of life where this principle can be applied, you need to send some things on a time out, or you need to take a time out from some situations so that you can clear your head and come back to deal with them like the adult that you are.