"Acting out behavior signals a need for more connection, not less."

Children's greatest emotional need is to feel connected to their parent's and caregivers.

That vital parent-child connection is also the foundation of our effectiveness as parents. Using threats and fear to control children's behavior is a short term, dead end form of discipline. Ask the parents of any teenager if counting to three and time-out still work. When we use time-out or the threat of time-out to try to control children's behavior we undermine our own effectiveness by breaking connection with the child.

Children can't always communicate their needs and feelings with words, so they often communicate their unmet needs and hurt feelings by acting them out, thus acting out behavior. When children are acting out an unmet need or a hurt through unacceptable behavior they need us to work with them to help them identify their need and find an acceptable way to communicate the need. Acting out behavior signals a need for more connection, not less.

Three year old Sally needs to learn that it is not OK hit her new baby brother to communicate her need for more of mom's attention. Time-out will not teach her a better way to communicate her needs, and the feeling of rejection that time-out causes will make her feel even more disconnected.

Connection Parenting teaches parents to connect before we correct and replace time out with time in. Instead of giving Sally a time-out for hitting, we say, "We don't hit in our family. Let's sit together and talk about what is hurting you that caused you to be hurtful to your brother. What do you need?"

Young children may not be able to tell us what they need, but taking the time to connect usually helps us figure out what hurt or unmet need might be causing the behavior. Time-out breaks connection and teaches children that they are bad for having needs. Time-in connects us to our children and teaches them that we care enough to help them find better ways to get their needs met.

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