You may have read it. This month’s Mothering Magazine has a beautiful article about a mother’s new approach to the age-old time out discipline tool. I’m not crazy about what time out has become either. It’s the new spanking for our generation of moms. It’s become a tool to punish rather than to teach.

Remember, teaching? I know, it’s sometimes hard to remember that we are striving to teach our children appropriate behavior sometimes because our models from our past were about making children “pay” for their misdeeds by making the child feel miserable and full of guilt and shame.

But I digress. So, this article was great. A mom of 2 young children decided to create a “Time In” rather than a time out. Her 2 and 4 year olds began to squabble over the 4 year old’s couch cushion castle creation and the 2 year old did what all 2 year olds seem to do, he wrecked it.

Instead of separating the boys, or putting the 2 year old on the naughty chair for his 2 minutes on the microwave timer, mom grabs a kushie ball and announces “Time In.” The boys are intrigued and mom explains that whomever is holding the ball can speak about what happened and their feelings.

Oh, I know, you’re thinking, “This is great! I love it already.” It appeals to your intentional ways.

But WAIT! I was excited about it too and I even got so seduced by the idea that I tried it with my own two kids. We had just gotten back from our trip on the 4th. We were all tired from exhaustion and being in the van for 4 hours together. I was catching up on mail and unpacking bags when the tiff broke out. Fresh from my read of the article, I announced “Time In!”

Wow. Both kids stopped and sat down with me and I passed around the wooden orange (that was the closest object I could find to a talking stick).

Both kids talked about their feelings and what went wrong and came up with a solution. They had a wonderful time. I had a great time too. Then, that night, I was in bed and thinking it all over again with a big grin on my face. But then it hit me.

What was I thinking? Of course they loved it! I had literally stopped in my tracks and sat down and gazed into their sparkling eyes and listened with all my heart to their sweet little thoughts and big ideas. Since when did that ever happen the last time my ds bopped my dd in the nose with his dinosaur? Uh. Never. It would be like running a red light and the police stopping you and paying you $50 for breaking the law! Would I run more red lights? You betcha!!

Yes, yes, I taught them to talk out their problems. But what else had I taught them? I taught them that they can make a ruckus and get mom’s full blown attention for 20 minutes.

I literally paid each of them a lot of time and energy for misbehaving!

But you know, it really got me thinking about “Time In.” Rather than using it as some sort of lovely consequence for misbehavior, I can use it as a reward for good behavior. I really loved giving them the time to talk with me and it was wonderful to look into their little faces and listen intently to them tell me their thoughts. I realized I don’t do it often enough in such an “intentional” way.

So, yes! I love “Time In!” Maybe you’ll find it as a ritual to begin or end your day or somewhere in the middle when all is going smoothly as a lovely way to say, “hey, you guys are behaving so cooperatively today, let’s have a Time In!”