Time out - yay or nay?

[johnd2]

Hi all, what do you think about time out for children? Is it a good thing, essential tool, a bad thing, or a necessary evil? Or something else.
I used to be against time out as I saw it as punishment and about control and power, and also just a one size fits all consequence, rather than related to the situation.
Now I think that if attention is the reward for not behaving it can surely be a good cycle breaker to remove the attention. While keeping the child safe.

Any thoughts? Is it healthy or just necessary or neither? Thanks for reading.

Worked for us. Gives everyone time to step back.

Thanks @AriettyHomily (borrowers reference there?)
Did you do it where you leave them alone or was it more of a thinking corner/time in?

I don't like it and didn't use it. It's often a huge amount of stress and hard work if they refuse to stay in one place and then becomes a power struggle and I don't like the idea of isolating a child as a punishment. It just never appealed to me as an option. I think I just always made it clear that certain things had to be done so we could move on to doing fun things, was clear about rules and expectations and kept an eye on him so he didn't have loads of opportunity to do things he shouldn't. I spent a lot of time doing positive things with him.

I used it, but rather than a punishment, I tried to use it as more of a "calm down" thing.

My son is six now and i can ask him now if he needs a time out and he can tell me!

I don’t like the idea and wouldn’t do it. How old is your child?

Not to punish, but to calm down and deescalate yes

DS was tired and a bit over wrought at the weekend, he said mummy I need a time out, for a blanket and a book and took himself off for 5 minutes. I checked in with him and we talked through after how he'd felt and what could make that better. I think it depends how you handle it

No, I never really did any kind of punishment.

I think time out is OK if it is genuinely done as time for the child to cool down, but it wasn't an approach that I ever wanted to use.

Like a PP said, for us it was often worse and more escalating expecting him to stay in that place when he was full on tamtruming or screaming. A calm and rational approach, from which ever parent could manage it, worked better for us.

I could never get DD to sit down and I wasn't going to physically restrain her. You got to parent the child you've got IME.

Thanks all that's really validating.
And @AnneLovesGilbert he is 3 this month.

Never used time out so far and never thought I needed it, but I am not always calm so I'm thinking about how to create and enforce reasonable boundaries while leaving his autonomy open.
Interestingly the research suggests that time out is actually good for your child's and your own mental health when used to break "coercive cycles"