Positive Time-Out: And Over 50 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles in the Home and the Classroom

The Positive Discipline series is all about non-punitive, respectful discipline (discipline=teaching). Treating your children with kindness and firmness at the same time is the key. This book talks about the need for a cooling off period when emotions run high (on either side) before the problem-solving session can begin. This Positive Time-Out is a choice made by the child to be most effective. The child helps to choose it in advance, when there's no conflict. Jane Nelsen stresses the point that children do better when they feel better. The parent can take one too whenever he/she needs it. When both sides have calmed down, there's a focus on solutions, not blame. This book also gives 14 attitude tools (for those who find it hard to shift from punishment to non-punitive attitudes) and 41 (yes, 41!) action tools you can use to guide your child. It's gentle, effective discipline in my book! What I think is important in this book is also the need for children to develop a "can do" attitude. Jane Nelsen talks about the Significant Seven Perceptions and Skills children need to thrive in the world. If every parent would help their children achieve these social and life skills, children would be more confident, cooperative and well-adjusted as adults. A handy, great book brimming with wonderful ideas!

This book had many tools that help you with parenting! Many books offer extreme ideas or only ideas the help "fix the kids". This book gives many ideas with recognizing and working with the common difficulties of being a parent and gives many tools for helping parents and kids. I have just finished reading this book and have had two wonderful weeks with less struggles with my two kids and much more cooperation. I also learned more about my limits and when I need to take time to calm down from a situation and how to do so. I found this book very helpful and very affordable.

This is one of the best books available for people who either have children or work with them. The make sense, and they work. Why would children do better when they are punished, when adults don't? I've used these ideas with the children I work with, as young as age three, and they work. I've also taught them to parents who have taken parenting classes with me, and all have reported success with the method. It allows us as adults to avoid power struggles, set clear limits and have boundaries with our children, rather than using external control. As the author explains, external control doesn't work in the long term - kids only learn how to not get caught, or they become totally dependent on the approval of others, which makes them likely to get caught in peer pressure. Punitive time out teaches conformity and compliance. Postive time out teaches kids to think about the impact of their behaviour on others and the consequences of their choices.

Bravo and many thanks to Jane Nelsen for her latest book, Positive Time-Out. Since it's publication last November, nearly two hundred parents from my workshops have tried this fabulous approach with their children. The response and outcome has been more than favorable. Parents have shared that they no longer experience the power struggles and frustration that had accompanied their previous attempts with time-outs. Initally, many parents expressed hesitance in using this approach. Most said they felt it was necessary to make time-out punitive--even if they were following many of the Positive Discipline guidelines. However, I consistently hear parents say, "since we've changed our approach and stopped using time-out as a punishment, things have improved". All of Jane Nelsen's books have reframed the parenting approach from a negative to a positive and indeed it has helped many families achieve peace, cooperation, and satisfaction. As a parenting educator, I have used this model exclusively for nearly twenty years and have had the experience of receiving compliments and gratitude from the thousands of families who have benefitied from it's amazing and positive outcome.

Amazing! This book blew my mind -- the idea that time-out could be positive when conventional wisdom teaches that it should be punitive. It made total sense to me. The author teachers that childlren do better when they feel better. Don't we all? I apoligized to my two sons (six and eight) for using punitive time out. Together we created a positive time out (which we decided to call "CORP" (for cooling off to regroup). They loved the sports analogy for time out as a time to calm down and regroup. Now, when they get upset, they often say, "I need some Corp time," or I ask, "Would some Corp time help you right now?" The author is right; my kids are learning a valuable life skill -- and so am I. I take Corp time myself when I'm about to "lose" it. The other ideas for reducing power struggles are also great, but my relationship with my kids is so much better since we created Corp together. These ideas could make a huge difference to the way parents (and teachers) discipline children. I recommend it to everyone.