Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #160 The Trouble With Time Out with Alfie Kohn

Transcript

#160 The Trouble With Time Out with Alfie Kohn · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All time out, like all punitive consequences, is never going
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to help children develop. We have to find a way
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: of working with children instead of doing things.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Do them.
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  Speaker 3: It's a Happy Family's podcast, the podcast for the time
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: poor parent, He yes, wants answers Now, Well, we're not
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: going to mess around it all today, We're straight into it.
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  Speaker 3: This is a conversation that I am looking so much
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  Speaker 3: forward to. By the way, my name is doctor Justin Colson,
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  Speaker 3: the author of six books about raising happy families. My
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  Speaker 3: wife and podcast partner is Kylie. We're the parents of
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  Speaker 3: six kids.
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  Speaker 4: If you've been listening over the last few weeks, you'll
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  Speaker 4: have heard some amazing, I mean amazingly amazing discussions we've
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  Speaker 4: had with Alfie Cone. I think he's becoming one of
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  Speaker 4: my favorites.
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  Speaker 3: He's been my favorite for twenty years and you're finally
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  Speaker 3: saved the hour.
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  Speaker 4: We had a great conversation with him around punishment and reward.
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  Speaker 1: The research is very clear rewards, like punishments, can only
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  Speaker 1: get temporary impliance, and in both cases they repard moral
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  Speaker 1: and social and intellectual development.
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  Speaker 4: If you've missed those, make sure you go back and
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  Speaker 4: have a listen. It's really well worth it. But today
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  Speaker 4: we've got something awesome.
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  Speaker 3: So a while back, I had a very uncomfortable In fact,
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  Speaker 3: it was a very public disagreement with a psychology professor
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  Speaker 3: at a major university in Sydney. I won't mention the
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  Speaker 3: professor's name, I won't mention the university.
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  Speaker 5: But I will highlight this. He was staggeringly rude.
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  Speaker 3: He was extraordinarily aggressive because he didn't like my take
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  Speaker 3: on time out.
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  Speaker 4: That's yeah, anyway, let's carry on today, Alfie joins us
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  Speaker 4: to talk about the problem with time out. Alfie, the
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  Speaker 4: third time you've spoken with us.
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  Speaker 5: We're so grateful, happy to do it.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so Alfie, let's dive straight in. I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: ask as if I'm brand new to the topic and
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  Speaker 3: have never heard anything about it before, because I want
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  Speaker 3: everybody to hear your take what is wrong with time out?
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  Speaker 1: First of all, it's interesting to look at where the
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  Speaker 1: phrase came from. What's the history of it? And I'll
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  Speaker 1: be very brief here, but timeout was developed in the
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  Speaker 1: laboratories of BF Skinner. You know, most people will know,
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  Speaker 1: I hope who I'm talking about, an American psychologists who
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  Speaker 1: did most of his research with Rodents and pigeons, and
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  Speaker 1: wrote most of his books about people. BF Skinner and
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  Speaker 1: his acolytes ended up training rats to run through mazes
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  Speaker 1: and to press bars, pigeons to pecket discs, and so on,
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  Speaker 1: and instead of just trying to control their behavior with reinforcers,
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  Speaker 1: usually food, they would sometimes have a time out from
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  Speaker 1: positive reinforcement. That was the original phrase, which means we're
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  Speaker 1: going to stop giving you the food for a while
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  Speaker 1: to punish you, or time out from light and plunge
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  Speaker 1: the animals into darkness to see if that would extinguish
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  Speaker 1: the behaviors that the researchers didn't want, the people with
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  Speaker 1: the power. And by the way, over the years that
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  Speaker 1: I've been writing and thinking about this, the one thing
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  Speaker 1: is clear to me is praise and rewards, just like punishments,
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  Speaker 1: are really about power. People with more of its controlling
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  Speaker 1: people with less of it. That's what lurks underneath every
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  Speaker 1: treakly good job, every sticker and star. It's about me
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  Speaker 1: making you do what I want. So instead of using
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  Speaker 1: physical violence on children, which apart from being a moral abomination,
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  Speaker 1: turns out to be massively counterproductive, any kind of slapping
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  Speaker 1: or spanking teaches children to hurt others when they want
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  Speaker 1: to get something done. So there are actually therapists and
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  Speaker 1: pediatricians who will say, don't spank kids, you know, use
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  Speaker 1: a time out.
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  Speaker 5: There post pediatricians outfie.
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  Speaker 3: The American Psychological Association, the APA has psychiatric I can't
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  Speaker 3: refer it's the psychiatrical psychological but the major body over
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  Speaker 3: there in the United States has come out and explicitly
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  Speaker 3: said that they're now against spanking.
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  Speaker 5: In Australia, we would call it smacking, but they.
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  Speaker 3: Have explicitly stated that they would encourage parents to be
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  Speaker 3: using time out. So we've got a peak body in
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  Speaker 3: charge of psychology and looking up for these kinds of
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  Speaker 3: things saying that time out is the way to go.
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  Speaker 5: Obviously, the history of it is that this.
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  Speaker 3: Is about removing children from positive reinforcement, but you and
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  Speaker 3: I both are.
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  Speaker 1: It becomes so when I saw that it was. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: if you look up in the psychological literature, time out
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  Speaker 1: is listed under the category of love withdrawal. And that's
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  Speaker 1: when the light bulb went turned on for me or
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  Speaker 1: for my head, because I was thinking, what positive reinforcement.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like we're handing out candy bars to kids
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  Speaker 1: all day long. They do something bad and we say up,
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  Speaker 1: time out, you bar for ten minutes. What's the positive
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  Speaker 1: reinforcement that we're shutting down. It's our love and that's
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  Speaker 1: how young children experience it, and that is absolutely horrifying.
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  Speaker 1: And this connects to what you and I talked about
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  Speaker 1: in both of our last two sessions. First time out,
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  Speaker 1: which is actually more accurately called forcible isolation of young
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  Speaker 1: children is a way of doing things to them rather
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  Speaker 1: than working with them, about appealing to naked power to
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  Speaker 1: make them unhappy on purpose in the hope that that
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  Speaker 1: will change their behavior, which, as I argued a couple
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  Speaker 1: of weeks ago, that just the only thing that can
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  Speaker 1: ever get is temporary compliance, but at an enormous cost,
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  Speaker 1: a cost to their ethical development and a cost to
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  Speaker 1: our relationship.
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  Speaker 2: Because now kids come to see us very much the
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  Speaker 2: same way as we They're about as happy to see
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  Speaker 2: us as we would be to see a police car
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  Speaker 2: in our.
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  Speaker 1: Rear view mirrors. We're not a caring ally to help
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  Speaker 1: them through a problem they're having. Now, where someone who
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  Speaker 1: has the capacity to make them unhappy if we don't
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  Speaker 1: please them. That's what every time out does is further
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  Speaker 1: rupture our relationship and from a very practical point of view,
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  Speaker 1: our capacity to solve the problem. That's why time out,
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  Speaker 1: like all other punishments and rewards, are not just ineffective,
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  Speaker 1: they actually do damage. And the other thing that we
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  Speaker 1: talked about more recently is the other feature of timeout,
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  Speaker 1: which is that it communicates the conditionality of our love.
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  Speaker 1: It says, I love you, care for you, want to
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  Speaker 1: spend time with you only when you meet my standards,
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  Speaker 1: only when you do what I demand. Otherwise you are
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  Speaker 1: literally cast off from me, and figuratively I'm casting you
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  Speaker 1: off at the same time, which is devastating for a child.
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  Speaker 1: So when you talk of you and I were chatting
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  Speaker 1: before about a psychologist who believes that under some circumstances
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  Speaker 1: with you know, and possibly fine distinctions of what problem
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  Speaker 1: had led to it and how long we do it
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  Speaker 1: and so on, sort of like tight trading this for
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  Speaker 1: the fine, you know, the fine tuning of when to
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  Speaker 1: do time out and for how long, and what they
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  Speaker 1: have to do to earn their way back into our
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  Speaker 1: presence and so on. All of this is is like
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  Speaker 1: talking about different types of wood you should use on
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  Speaker 1: the paddle when you hit a child. It misses the
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  Speaker 1: big picture here, which is that all time out, like
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  Speaker 1: all punitive consequences, is never going to help children develop
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  Speaker 1: in the way that we want to. That we have
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  Speaker 1: to find a way of working with children instead of
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  Speaker 1: doing things to them.
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  Speaker 4: Elfie, can you just unpack that idea around using love
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  Speaker 4: as a positive reinforcement versus using punishment and time out.
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  Speaker 1: The whole idea of a punishing children deliberately making them
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  Speaker 1: unhappy to change their behavior, and then second as well,
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  Speaker 1: communicating the conditionality of our affection and our love when
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  Speaker 1: what they need is to be loved for who they are,
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  Speaker 1: never for what they do. They should never have to
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  Speaker 1: earn our affection suggests that this is another example of
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  Speaker 1: how many people miss the farest for the trees, focus
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  Speaker 1: too much on the details. Don't take a step back
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  Speaker 1: and say the whole practice is grounded in something problematic.
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  Speaker 1: No version of that old style traditional bribe and threat approach,
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  Speaker 1: including time out, will ever be effective if by effective
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  Speaker 1: you mean a child who can think for herself, a
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  Speaker 1: child who is genuinely concerned about the well being of
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  Speaker 1: others even when there's nothing in it for her, A
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  Speaker 1: child who is able to communicate effectively to trust, respect
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  Speaker 1: and be respected a child who is happy. The more
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  Speaker 1: ambitious your goals are for your children, the more you
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  Speaker 1: should run from any version of time out or other
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  Speaker 1: versions of rewards and punishment.
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  Speaker 3: Alfie Cone is our guest on our podcast today. We're
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: going to continue our chat with Alfie in just a second.
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  Speaker 5: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: US Screens Creating Tension at Home, Tweens, Teens and Screens
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: Bye today at happyfamilies dot com, dot you slash shop.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast with Justin and Kylie Colson.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Today's guest Alfie Kohne, the author of Punished by Rewards,
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  Speaker 3: Unconditional Parents, and a whole range of other books. It's
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  Speaker 3: so good to be talking with you again, Alfie.
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  Speaker 5: You bet so, Alfie.
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  Speaker 4: We've been talking about time out and how it's linked
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  Speaker 4: controlling our kids. But I'm thinking about these parents who
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  Speaker 4: are with us today and just wondering what am I
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  Speaker 4: supposed to do with a child who just won't do
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  Speaker 4: what I ask?
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  Speaker 3: What is one.
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  Speaker 4: Simple tip that you would suggest to give these parents
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  Speaker 4: reassurance that they've actually got this, they can do it.
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  Speaker 1: I need to know whether it's worth doing. As I
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  Speaker 1: said in our last conversation, much of the time, not
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  Speaker 1: all of the time, but much of the time, instead
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  Speaker 1: of asking how do I get kids to do this?
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  Speaker 1: If I can't use bribes and threats. The problem is
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  Speaker 1: not with the kid's refusal. The problem is with the
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  Speaker 1: inappropriateness of what we're asking kids to do, and the
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  Speaker 1: fact that it may be more for our convenience than
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  Speaker 1: for helping because the child needs it or will benefit
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  Speaker 1: from it. And then some version of eliciting from kids
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  Speaker 1: their experience and figuring out, even if they can't tell
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  Speaker 1: us in words yet, why they're acting the way they do.
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  Speaker 1: Because if kids are shrieking, if they're reacting in a
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  Speaker 1: way that we find very disturbing and annoying, it's often
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  Speaker 1: because that's the only way they have of communicating their
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  Speaker 1: understandable pain or resistance. Our job.
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  Speaker 2: And by the way, this is something I didn't say in.
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  Speaker 1: Our past two conversations, but what we have to do
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  Speaker 1: is move beyond behavior. I have this little rule of thumb,
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  Speaker 1: which is that the value of a resource for parents,
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  Speaker 1: which would include a podcast, an article, a book, a lecture.
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  Speaker 1: The value of a resource for parents is inversely proportional
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  Speaker 1: to the number of times it contains the word behavior.
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  Speaker 3: I think this is the first time we've used that
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  Speaker 3: word in three conversations.
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  Speaker 5: I'm feeling good about it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, right, good on us.
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  Speaker 1: But the point is that that's not true for most
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  Speaker 1: people who focus on that. What defined BF Skinner as
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  Speaker 1: a behaviorist wasn't just his use of reinforcers to control
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  Speaker 1: pigeons or children. It's the fact that he literally believed
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  Speaker 1: there is nothing to us other than behaviors that you
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  Speaker 1: can see and measure. The more you believe that's true
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  Speaker 1: and you talk, you go to your pediatrician, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you go to your therapist or whatever, and say, how
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  Speaker 1: do I deal with my child's behavior or misbehavior it's
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  Speaker 1: called misbehavior where the more powerful person doesn't like it.
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  Speaker 1: How do I deal with the behavior? You're already lost
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  Speaker 1: because the answer is almost always going to be some
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  Speaker 1: version of a bribe or a threat.
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  Speaker 5: Someone's better say how do I help a child? How
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  Speaker 5: do I how do I understand my child? How do
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  Speaker 5: I work up?
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  Speaker 1: What matters are? The are the needs, the values, the
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  Speaker 1: goals that under lovey and inform the actions, because when
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  Speaker 1: you're talking about a kid's behavior as being problematic, you're
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  Speaker 1: probably going to fall back on a reward or repunishment,
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  Speaker 1: which can temporarily buy you a different behavior, but you've
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  Speaker 1: lost your child when you're looking at only the behavior
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  Speaker 1: on the surface. What I call a working with approach,
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  Speaker 1: which begins with the complete cessation of all rewards and punishments.
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  Speaker 1: A working with approach will play out differently depending on
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  Speaker 1: the child and the situation and you, but it will
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  Speaker 1: always be about looking underneath the behavior at the child
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  Speaker 1: him or herself.
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  Speaker 3: For the last question, because that time is fostpent, would
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  Speaker 3: you agree that it is appropriate from time to time
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  Speaker 3: to say, we're all a little bit emotional right now.
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  Speaker 3: None of us are dealing well with the situation. We
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  Speaker 3: need to have some and I'm using the wood intentionally now,
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  Speaker 3: we need to have some time out to recalibrate and
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  Speaker 3: to rearient ourselves so that we can deal with this
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  Speaker 3: situation more effectively.
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  Speaker 1: As long as you're not projecting your need onto the
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  Speaker 1: child and pretending the child feels that way when the
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  Speaker 1: child doesn't, and only you do. With that caveat, I
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  Speaker 1: would say sure some time apart to be by myself,
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  Speaker 1: each of us and calm down, take a breath, think
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  Speaker 1: about stuff. Yeah, that can be a very useful anger
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  Speaker 1: management tool, but it's critical. What distinguishes a useful anger
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  Speaker 1: management tool from a rather cruel punishment is whether the
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  Speaker 1: child has control. If you invite the child to go
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  Speaker 1: to his bedroom and we can both calm down, that's fine.
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  Speaker 1: The child must be able to decide where to go,
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  Speaker 1: what to do there, when to come back. If that's
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: out of the child's hands, then it's not a useful
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  Speaker 1: anger management tool.
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  Speaker 5: It's become a punishment. Yeah. Yes, on.
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  Speaker 3: There have been many times, elfywhere I've looked at my
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  Speaker 3: children and said, I'm not coping with this very well,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to send myself to my room until i
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  Speaker 3: can c about and behave like an adult. And that's
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: worked just fine because it was about me, it wasn't
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: it wasn't it about them. Great talking to you For
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: people who wanted to find out more. We'll add all
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: the links to your books and to your wonderful resources
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: in our show notes. Thank you so much for your
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: generous conversation. Thank you well, such a great conversation. A
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: really big thank you again. Alfie really appreciate your time.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: And if you missed out, we have two other conversations
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: with Alfie on punishment and rewards and unconditional parenting, so
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: make sure that you have a listened to them.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: We really hope you enjoyed the podcast.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: If you do enjoy the podcast, can you visit Apple
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Podcasts and leave a rating and review a five star
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: review and rating if you don't mind. We really appreciate
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: those because when you do that, it helps other people
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: to find the podcast and have happier families. Oh, by
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: the way, some news about that that I'm going to
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: tell you about tomorrow. The Happy Families podcast is produced
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Thank you very much
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Justin and Our executive producer is Craig Bruce. If you'd
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: like more info about how we can help you families
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: to flourish, you can find all the information on our
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Facebook page doctor Justin Gilson's Happy Families, or at happyfamilies
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: dot com dot au.