Monthly Grandparenting Column
by Karen Robbins

The writers’ strike the past few months changed my television viewing habits a bit. I’ve done a lot more reading and less watching. What I have watched has been out of the ordinary routine for me—things like The Biggest Loser, another show that resembles Candid Camera, and Super Nanny.

The Super Nanny show reminded me that our child rearing philosophy has changed drastically from the days when I was a child and even from when I was raising my own children. The term “timeout” was something that only sports fans were familiar with and, except for hockey, only meant time for the team to strategize or regroup.

Nowadays “timeout” is a familiar term to anyone who is parenting. It refers to time spent on a special chair, or “naughty seat” as Super Nanny says, for a child who has disobeyed or been disrespectful. Gone are the days of good old fashioned spankings to clear the air.

Timeout is a good discipline tool for grandparents to use if your grandchildren tend to take advantage of you when they’re visiting without their parents. Kids today are aware of the timeout procedure so talking about it with them is easy enough. But they may be shocked to learn that there’s a timeout seat at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I remember the first time one of our grandchildren learned that. His eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they would fly off his head.

To be effective however, there must be rules set out so that a child knows when he’s crossed the line. As a grandparent, we need to choose those carefully. A grandparent’s house should be a fun place to visit. Pick out only those that you absolutely need: no disrespectful language, no hitting each other or you, no jumping on the furniture, etc. Don’t make it a long list. You probably know where you need to set limits from past visits with your grandchildren or from observing behavior at their home.

The suggested procedure ala Super Nanny is to place the child in the timeout seat then get down to his eye level to talk and be sure he understands what he did wrong. Time in the seat should be one minute for each year of age. A two year old would be two minutes in the seat—a seeming lifetime for one so small. Five minutes for a five year old would certainly give them some thinking time. If the child gets up, you need to place him back in the seat and again tell him why he is there.

Once time is up, you remind him why he was sitting there and ask him to apologize. Hug him and reassure him you love him. And here is where we as grandparents have the edge—let him know that you want to have fun with him when he visits not watch him sit in the timeout seat. Grandchildren want to have fun with Grandma and Grandpa too and I’m sure the next time you have to warn about timeout, it will be heeded a little more seriously.