Does time out do more harm than good?

School disciplinary procedures have thankfully evolved a lot in the last two decades. But even today, how much have we actually applied brain-science in the way we respond to classroom behaviour?

We know too much about the child’s brain and how it influences behaviour, to ignore it in the classroom, or anywhere else for that matter.

But first, to bust a myth: children do not make considered choices about their behaviour all the time. As adults, we tend to presume that kids make decisions as we do, and that they have full choice and control over everything they do.

For children, the ‘thinking’, ‘logical’ parts of the brain, the temporal lobes, are still evolving. A lot of behaviour we see in the classroom may come from the prehistoric ‘limbic’ brain. This is the part directing your “fight or flight” response. It doesn’t use logic but simply determines there is a threat and reacts to defend. It does not access the part of the brain which evaluates the whole picture, thinking about whether the perception of danger might in fact be incorrect. Sometimes this will display itself through what some people call ‘tantrums’ or ‘meltdowns’ or ‘anger out of control’. In reality,  what you may be witnessing is ‘dysregulated’ behaviour. In these situations, children have perceived an immediate threat and are ‘reacting’ without control over their emotions. 

This is most prominent for children who have experienced trauma at any time in their past. You may not even be aware that a child has experienced trauma, and all you will see is their ‘behaviour’. In fact, their behaviour is communicating to you that they experience something as a threat. These children will sometimes experience apparently innocuous things, as a complete attack.

Trauma is highly prevalent among children in our classrooms. Research from the University of Sydney last year revealed that 41% of Australian adults had suffered at least one traumatic event before the age of 17, such as physical or sexual assault.

Regardless, all children need help to regulate their emotions in these situations. That is, to find a way to switch off the fight or flight centre and move into their logical, thinking brain. 

However, the most common behaviour management practices we see educators use, can actually hinder this. For children who have experienced trauma, this can even re-traumatise them.

Very often, educators respond to a child who ‘melts down’, or ‘out of control’, or ‘not thinking about consequences’ by sending them away for time out. 

Modelled on the old principle of ‘go to your room and think about it’, there has been a bit of conjecture on this technique over the years. Deautels and McKnight observe that while many of our schools term actions like this as ‘consequences’ rather than punishments, ‘in effect they are often one and the same’.

Research has now shown that ‘timeouts’ do not create improvements in behaviour. Isolating a child in front of their peers and sending them away, can actually ‘amp up’ the fight or flight response in the child’s brain. This then increases the child’s dysregulation of their emotions, and can in turn, even increase the behaviour. 

Time out can induce shame and feelings of ostracization. Research now shows us that ostracization mirrors pathways in the brain for physical pain. Shame can actually produce even more ‘dysregulation’ and can lead to further ‘outbursts’, keeping the brain stressed. Increasing this stress can make problems worse because stressed brains can’t learn. A child stuck in this ‘fight or flight’ mode cannot physically access the thinking, logical part of their brain until they are calm.

Calming in this sense is all about supporting a child to regulate their emotions. The more they are supported to do this, the more they will be able to do it independently.

How do we do this? For a child who is dysregulated, remember that ‘reasoning’ with them will be almost impossible until they are regulated again. Think of the ‘Three Rs’: first regulate, then relate and then reason. To regulate, you need to create an environment of trust and safety without shame. Key is controlling your own reactions. Suggest to the child that you want to take some deep breaths together so that they can explain how they feel, demonstrating that you want to understand what has happened from their perspective. Deep breathing is not just a fluffy concept. At a brain cell level, any form of presence and mindfulness allows us to unhook the reactive brain reaction and to connect with our thinking brain. If you do it together, it gives the sense of shared experience and importantly (‘relating’), helps you to stay calm too. 

As one expert so beautifully put it: “You can’t teach children to behave better by making them feel worse. When children feel better, they behave better.”

Further reading: Calmer Classrooms, Brain Aligned School & Classroom Discipline