I was told years ago that when kids act up, we put them in a corner and give them a “timeout”. When I was a kid myself, teachers used to call this the “naughty corner” and only the most atrocious-behaving kid got banished to this space.
When I became a parent, things got a bit more civilised and I started hearing people term it as the “thinking corner”, hoping to diminish the stigma of being thrown to some metaphorical far-flung land for misbehaviour, although honestly, they are all but the same thing.
Being a first-time mom some years back, I was also told to administer “timeout” if I wanted to discipline my daughter, then in her terrible-twos. To be fair, I tried but once and I knew there and then what I felt and it sucked. I detested having to chuck my bawling kid aside and demand that she stayed put. What for, right?
If it were you, would you rather take a step back and ask yourself what you are trying to achieve by giving your kid a “timeout”? And if you’re thinking along the lines of some self-reflection time, then I can assure that the kid knows nothing about rationalizing what he/she did wrong unless adults explain. Instructions (or commands) only work well when there’s a need to follow a step-by-step process, not when trying to talk through raging emotions. Makes sense?
If you were to ask me, I think what works better is a role reversal of sort. And so I gave myself a timeout one evening when I was losing patience over my son for refusing to cooperate and go through words for a Spelling test the next day in school. It’s really infuriating when things like this happen especially when I had sacrificed my TV time for a tussle? Makes no sense! 😅
It must be something that shocks the kid’s brain when Mommy decides to disappear, but anyhow, I timed myself out for a minute or two before popping back to check on sonny to see if he was ready to get cracking. Good thing he was.✌
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HE-ACK 
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