The Defiant Child by Douglas A. Riley

Author:Douglas A. Riley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
Published: 1997-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Monster Time Out

There is a variation of this strategy of taking away all obvious and subtle reinforcers that I use with prepubescent children, those typically between ages six and twelve. I call it Monster Time Out. I joke with parents that the “monster” part of this term refers to the intensity of the time out, not to the child. These are the ground rules: In Monster Time Out a child can’t do anything for four hours. He can’t watch TV or listen to music. If he is in a room where there is a TV or stereo and someone else wants to watch or listen, he must leave the room. He can’t go into his bedroom to lie down, take a nap or do anything fun. He is not allowed to lie down on the floor. He may sit, stand, or walk around the house all he wants. However, he is not allowed to touch anything, including toys, objects on shelves, and so on. He is not allowed to go outside, take phone calls, play video games, read, or draw. He may go to the bathroom briefly, but he may not take a bath or shower. If meal time comes during Monster Time Out, the amount of time it takes to eat is added on to the end of the Monster Time Out period. Meals will be simple and will not include dessert. He will not be allowed to eat anything else during the four hours. If he has questions, he will be given only brief answers because no one is allowed to have conversations with him during Monster Time Out. In general, all he is allowed to do is walk quietly around inside the house, sit, or stand. This all adds up to being allowed to do nothing. The child will get intensely bored, which is the whole point (boredom of this magnitude is exceptionally aversive to children, and they will not soon forget about it).

Parents tell me that at first their children think Monster Time Out is a big joke. They can’t see the punishment in such a situation. However, after about an hour of having nothing to do but walk around quietly, or sit, or stand, and of having to leave any room in which anyone else wants to use a TV or stereo, they do indeed begin to get extremely bored. We sometimes forget that children’s sense of time is quite different from that of an adult, and four hours to them seems endless. One ten-year-old told me that after two hours he was begging his parents to give him jobs to do because he could not stand doing nothing. One eleven-year-old told me that Monster Time Out was the worst punishment his parents had ever used, and he never wanted to go through it again.

In most cases restrictions such as these get the attention of even the most oppositional child or teenager when used frequently enough, consistently enough, and long enough. Don’t forget that it

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