Children Are from Heaven: Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

THE NEED FOR TIME OUT

With these new tools for creating cooperation, parents can maintain control within themselves, which in turns helps children stay in their control. Inevitably, some kids will go out of control on a regular basis, and the positive parent is prepared to deal with it. Almost all children need to take time outs on a regular basis to learn how to regain control when emotions become too strong to control.

Even many mature adults don’t know how to handle their inner emotions at stressful times. We cannot expect children to do so. By teaching thousands of adults to manage their inner feelings, I discovered many of these skills for creating cooperation. When a parent is stuck feeling resentful, anxious, depressed, indifferent, judgmental, confused, or guilty, the answer is always to look within to manage the negative emotions.

One of the major reasons there is so much more domestic violence in the West today is the lack of emotional control. In a free society, it is inevitable that feelings become richer when supported and more volatile when not supported. The first skill for resolving conflict in a relationship and ending all violence is recognizing that when feelings become strong, defiant, or rejecting, it is time to take a time out and cool off.

Adults who lose control and act out violently do so primarily because they never learned to take a time out to feel and release their negative emotions. This basic ability is needed by children, teens, and adults as well. The difference between a child and an adult is that a wise adult should know when she needs to take a time out and a child doesn’t.

Children at nine or ten years old, who have been raised with time outs, will automatically begin taking time outs on their own whenever they become stressed, negative, or argumentative. It is not a difficult skill, but it takes practice.

Sometimes the reason a time out works is that it puts the parent back into feeling in control. When a parent begins to feel out of control, it pushes a child out of control. By giving a time out, the parent has a chance to cool off and once again feel in control. This in itself is often what the child needs. A frustrated, demanding parent can easily spin a child out of control. The option of giving a time out not only puts the child in control but helps the parent as well.

When a child is not willing to cooperate with a command, then it is time for a time out. At this point, a time out is an opportunity for the child to blow off steam and throw a tantrum. Children need to feel their resistance to life’s inevitable limits and boundaries. They need to push up against those limits and feel their resistance. This pushing or resistance helps a child develop a strong sense of self. Ultimately, all the positive characteristics of the true self emerge. First, the negative emotions under the resistance must be felt and released.

Time to push against the limits is needed to help children experience the different layers of feelings underneath their resistance, resentment, rejection, or rebellion. Resistance is released when we are able to feel and release the three underlying negative emotions of anger, sadness, and fear. In a similar manner, adults can release the negative blocks of resentment, guilt, self-pity, when they take a time out to explore, feel, and release their negative emotions.

HOW NEGATIVE FEELINGS GET RELEASED

When a child is stuck in resistance and will not respond to the four steps of creating cooperation (see Chapter 7), then step five is required. Being contained in a room actually assists children in becoming aware of the deeper levels of their emotions. By feeling the three deeper levels of anger, sadness, and fear while the child is being cared for, the negative feelings are automatically released.

Giving a time out allows a child first to feel anger and frustration. Then, after a short period of time, the child will begin to cry and feel sadness or hurt. A little later, the child will feel his or her underlying fears and vulnerability. Within a few short minutes, all this drama will lift away and suddenly once again the child will be miraculously back in your control.

In a time out, by first feeling the primary emotions that come up when contained, children return to feeling their needs. Prior to a time out, children are acting out of control because they have forgotten their need for loving guidance and their desire to cooperate.

By putting children in a time out, they get a chance to resist doing what you want. Then a switch turns and they begin to feel their emotions. Instead of just being emotional, they “feel” their emotions. The act of resisting the time out actually increases their ability to feel. With this increased awareness of what they feel, they begin to experience their need for parental love, understanding, support, and guidance. As they feel their need for love, their desire to cooperate is activated once again.

Children are from heaven. They are born wanting to please their parents in order to get what they need. Children need love and support to survive, so they are born with a willingness to cooperate and please in order to get that love.

This healthy desire is activated whenever children reconnect with their feelings. Increasing children’s awareness of their feelings draws out their need for love and support, which then awakens their desire to please and cooperate.

Sometimes these levels of feelings come up when a child resists our request for cooperation. At other times, feelings come up in tender conversation. At other times, when children are not getting what they need or when life is just too stressful, they will require more time outs to feel and move through the three levels of emotional resistance: anger, sadness, and fear.

THE IDEAL TIME OUT

The ideal time out is accomplished when a parent puts a child in a room and holds the door shut. It is a natural expression of resistance for a child to try to get out.

Remember, children are supposed to resist. Locking the door and leaving a child creates feelings of abandonment. Being present on the other side of the door, at least in your children’s early experiences with time outs, is very important for some children. After many time outs, a child will not try to get out.

The time needed is generally one minute for each year. A four year old goes in for four minutes; while a six year old goes in for six minutes. When parents first hear this, they can’t believe it will work for their child, but it does. It works for all children and all ages starting at two years old.

After fourteen, giving time outs is rarely necessary. If you didn’t raise your children with many years of time outs, your teenagers will still require them, particularly at those times when they are being disrespectful or will not listen to your commands.

Let’s explore what happens in an ideal time out for a four year old. At first, the four year old resists, and you may even have to carry him into the room. It can be his room or any room. At first, he will get angry, throw a tantrum, and try to get out. After about two minutes, he will stop trying to get out, but will surrender more to the limits and begin to cry. After another minute, he will shift to the more tender and vulnerable feelings of fear. At this point, he may even put his little fingers under the door and beg to come out saying, “Please, please let me out.”

At this point, it is fine to assure him that he only has one minute left and soon will be out. It is actually fine to assure children at any time during a time out. You might let them know repeatedly that you are not going anywhere, that you are just on the other side of the door, and that soon they will be able to come out.

EXPLAINING TIME OUTS

When children ask why they have to take a time out, the simple answer is this, “When we go out of control, we need a time out.” It is neither accurate nor helpful to say that a child needs some time to think about what he or she did wrong. Thinking in a time out is not necessary. All that is needed is to feel the emotions that come up and automatically the child comes back into control.

Children don’t need to think about what they did wrong. When parents focus too much on right and wrong with children, the only thing children learn is to feel guilty.

Instead of telling your children what is right or wrong, a better approach is simply to ask your children for specific behaviors and increased cooperation. As children cooperate, they automatically learn what is right or wrong, good or bad; they don’t ever need to be told they are bad or wrong.

Giving time outs replaces the need to punish or spank children. A time out connects children to their feelings and their need to cooperate, but in a completely different manner. When children are punished or spanked, they punish themselves or others when they go out of control. Children who take regular time outs do not punish themselves or others in order to regain control.

Adults who were punished continue to punish themselves or others. Adults who were not greatly punished have a higher sense of themselves and their worth and are much more successful in getting what they need while giving to others.

With regular time outs, children learn to manage their inner feelings. When life’s inevitable winds push them out of balance, they automatically take a time out, let go of their negative feelings, and return to their true self. They become more loving, happy, peaceful, and confident, and they are naturally motivated to cooperate rather than demand, submit, or manipulate.

FOUR COMMON MISTAKES

Many parents think they are giving effective time outs and complain that it doesn’t work. Time outs work, but they must be used correctly. These are the four most common mistakes parents make in using time outs:

1. They use only time out.

2. They don’t use time out enough.

3. They expect their children to sit quietly.

4. They use time out as a deterrent or punishment.

By setting the right parameters regarding time out, your children will come back into your control. They will once again reconnect with their inner prime directive, which is to follow your guidance and cooperate. Let’s explore each of these four mistakes in greater detail.

Just giving time out and not applying the other skills of positive parenting will eventually lessen the effectiveness of taking a time out. Time outs are to be used as a last resort or at times when you just don’t have time to move through the other four steps of positive parenting. To be cooperative and flourish, children have other needs besides their need to push up against the limits of a time out.

Even though the body needs vitamin C, it has other needs as well. Vitamin C alone will not keep a body healthy.

If you are vitamin C deficient, then it will make a big difference to your health because your body needs it. If you have enough of the other required vitamins, you will notice an immediate improvement in health. If you only get foods with vitamin C and ignore your other needs, then even vitamin C will not make much difference in keeping you healthy. In a similar way, each of the five steps of positive parenting is equally important to create cooperation.

While some parents rely too much on time out, others don’t use time out enough. They complain their children just will not listen. For example, one mother complained, “I ask him to stop jumping on the bed and he just laughs at me and keeps jumping.”

This is a clear sign that this mother is not giving enough time outs. A time out gives a parent control. If a child just laughs and ignores you, then clearly this child is out of control and needs more time outs. This parent needs to pick the child up and move him into another room for a time out.

Some parents conclude that a time out doesn’t work, because the next day the child goes out of control again.

These parents mistakenly assume that if time outs were working, their child would always cooperate and not resist.

A time out does not break a child’s will and create obedience. It strengthens a child’s will, but also nurtures her willingness to cooperate.

Children will be children and will go out of control. The regular need for time out doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

Active children in particular and little boys will tend to need more time outs. If your child needs more time outs, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with your child or your parenting approach. It is simply what your child needs at this stage in their development. There is no right number of time outs. It could be two a day, two a week, or two a month, or two a year. Every child is unique.

Soft-love parents use time outs, but generally not often enough. Instead of commanding cooperation, soft-love parents tend to cave in and give too much to the child. They can’t bear to hear the child scream, so they routinely placate the child.

Their child may so fiercely oppose a time out that parents will do anything to avoid a confrontation, even if that means giving in and doing what the child wants. When children become too demanding or bossy, it is a clear sign that the parents are not maintaining control with an adequate number of time outs.

Some parents misunderstand the whole purpose of a time out. They expect the child to sit quietly and cool off. Instead of giving a time out for the child to feel and release negative emotions, these parents discourage the child from getting upset.

They give messages like, “If you continue to resist then your time out doesn’t begin until you stop.”

A time out works because it gives children the opportunity to resist more. Encouraging your children to give up resisting and sit quietly instead is not a time out. Children should feel free to resist a time out. They are not supposed to like it, and they are not supposed to be quiet.

There is nothing wrong with giving a child a cooling off period. This is a form of redirection and one of the nurturing skills. If children are getting hyper and resist cooperating, then having them cool off by sitting in a corner or on a special bench is fine. This is similar to having children take naps when they become too fussy and resistant to direction.

A cooling-off period is not the same as a time out. In a cooling-off period, children are encouraged to be quiet and may even be rewarded for taking some time to cool off.

Cooling off does not encourage children to move through their feelings. The first step in learning to manage negative feelings is to feel them and release them. As children get older (around the age of nine), they are able to feel and release emotions without a time out.

A parent might say to an argumentative teenager, “This isn’t working. I want you to take some time in your room to cool off and then we can talk again.” This cooling off is all the teenager may need. While this is similar to a time out, it is still different; it is just directing your teenager to another activity to lessen resistance.

If the teenager resisted and the parent commanded and the teenager still resisted, then it would be a time out. The teenager would eventually storm away to his room. At such times, the parent must be very careful not to reprimand the child for resistance, but to continue commanding until the child goes into his room. When the teenager comes out, he will seem to be a different person.

The fourth mistake parents make is to use time out as a punishment. Although children may feel they are being punished by time outs, a parent must be careful not to use a time out as a punishment. As we have already discussed, fear-based parenting uses the threat of punishment to deter children from misbehaving. The threat of a time out can easily be misused to control a child. Quite often, parents will give a warning or signal saying, “If you don’t stop you will have to go take a time out.” This warning will stop children in their tracks as if the parent had said, “If you don’t stop, I will tell your father when he gets home” or “If you don’t stop, I will spank you.”

Threats have worked for centuries, but in a free society fear-based parenting comes back to haunt us. The more parents use punishment, the more their children will rebel later.

Many adults today still can’t connect or don’t feel a desire to connect with their parents because they were punished.

HUGGING DAD

When I became an adult, I had a great relationship with my dad. When I started teaching seminars on relationships, he was the first member of my family to attend. He would fly out to California from Texas to take my seminars. In these seminars, one of the exercises was learning to hug people.

I noticed that when I would hug people I could easily feel a warm connection. Yet, when I hugged my dad, although we had a loving and supportive adult relationship, I could only feel a slight connection. It was as if there was a wall separating us. I could hug a stranger and feel a lot more warmth and connection.

I asked my friends, who had hugged my dad, what their experience was. They said he was warm and friendly. They felt the connection, but I didn’t. I realized that this was from years of disconnecting with my natural desire to be guided by him. I was a good, obedient child, because of the fear of punishment.

As an adult, it took another ten years of self-therapy and participating in workshops to heal unresolved feelings before I could feel my connection with my dad when I gave him a hug. If he had known the techniques of positive parenting, he would have been happy to use them, and I would not have needed to heal these unresolved issues.

Using a time out as a threat will work in the short run, but in the long run the delicate and tender desire to cooperate with the parent is gradually weakened. Certainly, a time out is a much better punishment than taking things away or hitting, but it is still less than the best for your child.

ADJUSTING YOUR WILL VERSUS CAVING IN

Adjusting your will to give children what they want is not a great crime. It gives a clear and healthy message that parents listen and learn, and it demonstrates healthy respect and flexibility. Adjusting your will becomes caving in when your motive is to avoid confrontation. It is not healthy to cave in to your child’s demands.

Caving in will spoil children and make them more demanding. Remember, it is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation. Children need to experience again and again that the parent is the boss.

Children become spoiled when parents let them be boss.

Spoiled children have disconnected from feeling their need for the parent to be the boss.

When children don’t get enough time outs, they become prone to more intense tantrums. This means that when the child finally gets a time out, he or she will throw an even bigger tantrum. Eventually, with regular time outs, the child will come back into balance and be more cooperative rather than demanding. If you have caved in and spoiled your children, they can become unspoiled again by giving more time outs. Children are never really spoiled, just out of control.

After a while, you will easily sense when your child just needs a good cry. Crying is one of the most effective ways to release stress and feel better again. When you experience a great loss, grieving is an essential part of finding acceptance again. When our children experience their disappointments and losses, though these traumas may seem small to us, they are big to children. Children also have a need to cry or grieve as a way to accept the limits and boundaries of the world.

Some parents mistakenly assume that they are hurting their children because their children will cry. Without the insights of positive parenting, they mistakenly conclude that it is too cruel a measure. This same parent will often turn around and spank, yell, or punish a child when nothing else works.

A time out for a few short minutes does not hurt a child, but it does help to bring up the accumulated feelings that are right under the surface. A time out brings up the painful emotions that need to be felt in order to be released.

Although children never like taking time outs, they need to have good cry and come back into balance.

WHEN TO GIVE TIME OUT

Whenever you threaten to give a time out, you are using it as threat of punishment. Instead of threatening to give a time out, a parent should just give them. The best time for giving a time out is after a child has had the opportunity to respond to your commands. If, after you have repeated a command a few times, the child continues to resist, then he or she needs a time out. The time out is not given as a punishment, but because the child needs it. Even though the child may consider the time out a punishment, as long as you don’t use time out as a punishment, it isn’t a punishment.

If you warn children that if they continue to resist they will need a time out, you are still using time out to threaten children into obedience rather than using your rewards and commands to motivate cooperation. This fear-based approach only weakens your ability to command your children in the future.

THREE STRIKES AND YOU ARE OUT

After the age of nine, this circumstance changes. Children are now more capable of containing their feelings and don’t need time outs as much. They have learned to feel their emotions and let go of them. In this case, the child is given the opportunity to find within herself the ability to come back into control.

Children get three strikes, and then take a time out.

When a child is resisting and not responding to a command, the parent can simply say, “That’s strike one.” Strike one is a code that means that if she can pull herself together on her own and cooperate again, then she doesn’t need a time out. If within a few minutes she continues to resist, the parent says, “Strike two.” This means the child has one more chance to cooperate. If within a few more minutes the child continues to resist, then the parents say, “Strike three,” and the child takes a time out.

After explaining this to a nine year old, you can create your own code. You may wish to pull on your earlobe instead of saying “strike one” or you may just simply hold up one finger, two fingers, and then three fingers. Once you begin to use this approach, you need to be consistent. Before getting a time out, your children will expect to get their signals, which is good. Learning to pull ourselves together without having to suppress our feelings is an important skill. For children to pull it together, they need a few tries or strikes.

WHEN TIME OUT DOESN’T WORK

Some parents complain at workshops, “Time outs don’t work for my teenager. I can’t even get him to do it. He just laughs and walks off. I have to take something away to punish him.” This is just another example of the defiance teenagers today feel in response to all the punishment of the past. Fortunately, after years of using fear to motivate children, you can begin using the five steps of positive parenting and the five messages. They will begin to work immediately.

In this example, the parent needs to begin with the first four skills instead of just using time outs as another way to punish. Giving time outs work — when used together with the other four skills. Within a short period of time, your teenager will be much more cooperative. Time outs are most effective for young children. Learning to listen without giving advice and using rewards to motivate are much more effective skills to use with teenagers.

Time outs work by creating an opportunity for a child to resist. Some children are so disconnected from their inner desire to please that at first they don’t resist a time out. They are happy to take a time out and would prefer being alone to being with their parents. These children have disconnected from their desire to please or be guided. Some children just give up trying to please their parents or feel so controlled and manipulated that they don’t want their guidance either.

They don’t mind being alone and like showing their defiance in this way. Often, when children resent their parents, they happily go to their rooms to show they don’t care.

In this example, parents need to look at steps one, two, and three (see list below) to nurture their child back to feeling a desire to please and cooperate. Then this child would respond differently to time outs and benefit more from them. Even though the child appears to be happy, he or she is still being put in a situation beyond his or her control and is thus back in your control. If a child likes going to his or her room, use another room where he or she can’t play with their games, toys, stereo, or talk on the phone.

It would be fine to send children to their room to play a game, but that would not be a time out. If they resist taking time outs, then it is fine for them to use their games or toys during their time out. If they are happy about time outs, then put them in the bathroom or another room.

WHAT MAKES THE FIVE SKILLS WORK

The five skills of positive parenting work today because the world is a different place and so are our children. In a free society, we must adapt our parenting approach. In summary these skills are:

1. To create cooperation, ask don’t order.

2. To minimize resistance and improve communication, listen and nurture — don’t fix.

3. To increase motivation, reward — don’t punish.

4. To assert your leadership, command — don’t demand.

5. To maintain control, give time outs — don’t spank.

These five skills work to awaken our children’s willingness to cooperate. The fuel that makes these skills work are the five positive messages (see “Introduction”). Without these skills, we cannot effectively put the five positive messages into action, but it is the five messages that make the skills work. The five skills and five messages are interdependent.

The first message — it is okay to be different — nourishes our children’s need to feel loved and special. Without our understanding and accepting how each child is different, children cannot get the nurturing they need to be cooperative.

The second message — it is okay to make mistakes — is essential for children to feel good about themselves and continue to be motivated to please their parents in a healthy way. If mistakes are not accepted, then children either give up trying or give up themselves in the process of trying.

The third message — it is okay to have negative feelings — makes it safe for children to grow in an awareness of what they feel inside. This awareness is essential for keeping children in touch with their healthy need for parental guidance and approval, which in turn triggers their willingness to please and cooperate.

The fourth message — it is okay to want more — opens the doorway for children to develop a strong sense of self and direction by knowing what they want. Children who know what they want are most easily motivated by the possibility of more. They not only want more, but learn how to delay gratification when they can’t get it right away. When children have permission to want more, they quickly respond to rewards as well as to the opportunity to please their parents.

The fifth message — it is okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses — is essential for all the skills of positive parenting. Children must always have permission to resist if they are to cooperate. They must be able to resist if they are to make their feelings and wants known to others as well as to themselves. This message strengthens children’s willpower, which in turn strengthens their natural will and wish to please and cooperate.

When the five positive messages are the basis of parents’ approach to parenting, then the five skills of positive parenting are most effective. In the next five chapters we will explore these messages in greater detail. With this increased insight, parents will be able to make decisions and respond to their children in ways that nurture and support their children in becoming who they truly are and developing the special gifts they have to share in this world.