Daycare manager/Hannah Marshal/Office punishment/1st/A time out

"What are we going to do with you Hannah?" You muse, considering your options. "I think you need a time out." You get out a footstool and place it by the corner. You sternly order Hannah to sit facing the wall. Meanwhile, you continue to sit in your office to watch over her (You have more kids you are looking out for and no other staff)while keeping your ears open for ___/the other kids in case they start acting up and getting into their own trouble.

The standard recommended amount of time for a time-out is 30 seconds to 3 minutes, and the time-out duration is advised to not exceed a number of minutes equal to the child's age. It may not seem like much to give a punishment for only that short amount of time, but there are actually reasons for it. First off, for a kid, even that much is enough to make an impact. More importantly though, if you make it too long then the kid will start acting out, leaving you as the discipliner in a bad situation. If you let them get away with acting out, that just teaches them that sort of behavior is permissible. If you decide to increase the punishment based on them acting out though, it results in a vicious cycle that will inevitably cross the line into abusive territory if you continue to punish every instance of them acting out. It's just better in every way to keep the time-out short.

So, you decide to only keep the time-out going for 1 minute, and soon that 1 minute has passed so now you will...

• Talk to her then let her go
• Have her get up and then further escalate the punishment