![]() WITHOUT ANGER: It is always important to remain calm when providing time out or any behaviour support strategies. This is why consistency is so important with all behaviour management strategies.Ģ. You are using the strongest type of reward model to reinforce the behaviour you actually want to reduce or eliminate!! Now imagine if it was not a reward but a consequence such as time out being used in this inconsistent manner – what you actually do reinforce the inappropriate behaviour through the poker machine response. That’s why poker machines are set up this way. They must say please to get the reward but they don’t get it everytime – this is actually the strongest type of reward system. The child does not know when the reward is coming. A poker machine response looks like this: If you reward a behaviour sporadically you will reinforce that behavior more. In psychology terms this is known as intermittent reinforcement. Basically when a reward (or in this case consequence of time out) is used inconsistently like a poker machine pay out it strengthens the behaviour response. What do we mean by these:ġ.Consistency: There is something I have called the “poker machine” response strategy. The vital things to know if using time out strategies (apart from refraining from using cages and boxes!!!) is that it must be used consistently, without anger and used with praise and lots of love. It is not usual to use time out on a child under 2 years of age as they do not tend to understand the concept and hence learn very little from it. The rule for time out is that you use no more than 1 minute for each year of age e.g a 3 year old maximum time out would be for 3 minutes. ![]() If you do use a room, you may be able to leave the door open to help you monitor your child. This allows you to monitor your child without excluding them fully, just not where they can watch television or video games!! My children have been subjected to time out standing next to a tree in the park, or a bench seat at the supermarket or a corner of our dining room. I prefer what is often referred to as time in, – such as a corner of the room. When looking for an area to use for time out avoid using bathrooms and bedrooms in most cases. Outlining EXACTLY what the behavior you will use time out for is vital. It means redirecting your child calmly to a designated area you have for time out when they have displayed a behaviour that is inappropriate. Time out can help teach children right from wrong. However, I find it difficult to comprehend that the use of cages and boxes are still even a consideration especially by professionals in the field.Īs a Psychologist I am an advocate for ensuring children have boundaries and are given role models and encouragement to recognize right from wrong, but how can the use of these barbaric forms of behaviour management ever teach a child right from wrong? So I want to talk in this week’s blog about time out strategies, when they are appropriate and how to use them. I am well aware that many children, both with and without Autism, can at times be challenging and as a parent it can be extremely frustrating and difficult to manage these behaviours. Many of these stories are starting to be picked up by the media, and rightly so, such as the “cage” used In a Canberra school this year to restrain a young boy with Autism as well as the wooden box used to “calm” children at an ASPECT school at Heatherton in Victoria. I am ashamed and disgusted at yet another news story today about the use of time out used inappropriately in a Queensland school to “manage” the behaviours of a Year 3 boy with Autism.
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