What's an appropriate age to start time outs?
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I am not so sure it's an age as opposed to a developmental level. If your child is old enough to understand that they are being taken from their activity because of an inappropriate behaviour or action. Usually by 18-24 months children understand this concept. Prior to this redirection is often enough to stop the behaviour. A good rule of thumb is one minute for every year of age. Discussing (as well as you can with a toddler) why they had to sit is always a good idea.
Adding to that is make sure that whenever you do start, the time-out happens right away, so that the consequence to the action you're trying to nix is immediate. That way he'll learn that if I do THIS, then THAT will happen. Especially with younger kids, if it doesn't follow immediately then they basically have no idea what they're getting timed out for, because they've forgotten all about what they did. And make sure that you're consistent - EVERY time he hits, or whatever it is you're trying to stop, he gets a time out. That will lead to him really grasping that this is simply never allowed.
I agree with Andrea and Kat. It is important that the time out happen immediately. And it is recommand that you do a minute for every year old. Like Andrea said, you can start whenever you know that you child do understand that the behavior he had is not appropriate. I've started giving my DD time-out at about 16 months.
I also think that at home, it's a great idea to have a time out spot or chair. So everytime you give your child a time-out, he will connect the time out to the place where you are putting him. As he will grow older, I would also only start to count the minutes once he is calm down (ie: if he's scream, you wait til he stop to start counting the minutes). Hope I do make sense.
I also found that Magic 1-2-3 works great with kids. Less speaking for the parents. You just need to count. No explanation needed.
We use the Magic 1-2-3 method with our 4 yr old, and it works great. I believe we started it when she was 2.5 yrs old. Now we just hold up one finger, maybe get to two and normally she stops what she was doing.