Do time-outs work?

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Hello; looking for all you parent's perspectives....

I am not sure whether or not time-outs make sense. For example, this morning, my youngest (2) accidentally broke a piece off of my 6 year olds (aspie) lego alien ship. My 6 year old was very upset, and started throwing things at my youngest, who got beaned in the head pretty good.

I first talked to the 2 year old (for all the good that does) and showed him the toy, and not to break it since it was my oldest's toy.

Then, I tried to have a talk with my 6 year old separately, basically just describing the "golden rule" - don't do something to someone else that you wouldn't want happening to you. But (following the advice of a book.. ugh) when I tried to write this concept down for him, he started getting anxious and silly (doing the robot, giggling uncontrollably, wiggling around, baby talking, etc.). I simply could not get him to pay attention at this point.

So I put him in a time out to "chill" and think about the situation.

I am sure you will all tell me that I screwed up here in many ways, I just don't know what else to do! Are time outs effective? Does writing things down like that really work? He just doesn't seem to like that plan of action at all. HELP!

Ugh. So OK I screwed up here. I feel so stupid.

He was getting upset about writing it down because he couldn't quite read it.

:facepalm:

I re-wrote it in simpler words, and he read it back to me.

So, that said -

1- Do you guys write down stuff like this? Does it help?

2- Are there instances where timeouts *are* a good idea? Do they really do anything at all? Now that I understand (USUALLY) a little bit better the reasons that he gets anxious and silly, timeouts don't seem to make all that much sense to me... it's like a punishment for not understanding something.

This one was a big fat stupid mark for me, obviously.

The problem is you were punishing him for a secondary problem. The immediate problem was hurting a 2 year old. Before this ever happened, the 6 year old should be informed of what he can and can't do around a baby. So, when and if he loses it and hurts the baby, you can deal with it directly. Once he got mad and started throwing things, he was probably in no right mind to listen to anything.
I would have just removed him and repeated "no hurting" "no throwing". or whatever
He might have needed to have a tantrum in privacy.
When my son was hitting and screaming, we'd take his video games away.

You might have a talk after he is calmed down and explain, "don't hurt the baby for any reason". I get graphic with my son because he is so stubborn and wants reasons. I tell him if he keeps on hurting people, he won't have friends and if he hurts when he's an adult, he'll go to jail.

Specifically about time outs, no we don't use them.

I write stuff down before he gets out of control. Usually like rules where he already has a tendency to get crazy. Never during a problem.

There would be no possible way to even get my son to take a time out. I would have no way on earth to get him to stay in any place for a time out unless I literally had a cage.

Exactly, and then you are dealing with an unrelated problem, not the original one.

I have found The Explosive Child by Dr. Ross Greene really helpful. I fear I read it too late. I've had it for 2 years but ignored it. But parent after parent recommended it here. So, I finally read it. It discusses how to identify meltdowns and the precursors to them and how to decide what you need to address, how to do it and what to ignore.

Thank you! I will buy that book ASAP. I NEED it.

Saqqara, dealing with any child can be a challenge for any parent. I'm working on numbers 4&5 and stillmess up. Chalk it up to experience and move on. A couple of suggestions, first we found it helpful for Z to have a "safe-place" where he could go when he was having an explosive period. He was allowed to vent, scream, and throw stuffed toys until he was through. Then it was time for apologies (not always just his) hugs and brief discussion about what happened and why and how all of us could avoid it in the future. It helped but expect setbacks. Second, we never used the traditional "time-out". We have found that with all kids, Nt and Aspie, that time out meant "I'm being punished, I"ll just sit here and count the minutes till this is over". We used what we called "Calm Down and Control Time". Zwas required to go to a quiet area where he had to focus on calming himself down before he could return to whatever he was doing. During this time he also had to think about 1) what he had done, 2) why he had done it, 30 what he could have done differently and 4) what he can do to prevent a similar incident in the future. This had a kind of open-ended time frame, if he had not achieved all four requirements he had to go back and try again. Like everything else it took time but we have seen results. His school even uses a form of this but they call it his Regroup time ( after all parents know nothing about dealing with their children, it only took three years to get them to quit calling it time out). This, modified to meet your son's specific needs might be helpful. As for dealing with school, you are in for an interesting time and that will make for several different threads.

Stick around this is a great planet you have landed on.