Page 76 - The Intentional Parent

I do think it is worth a try to see if it is useful to permitting a child to explain why what they did was wrong, and teaching them if they don’t know. However, I think you have to decide as a parent whether that brings you to a point of diminishing returns with respect to future behavior.
It might be that time out works more for the parent than the child, and if so, that is important. Manage your expectations and use more than one technique. Some parents might find it helpful for a child to enter time out, then merely come out when they can be calmer. Also, it can be helpful for children to come out of the time out place with a requirement to stay in a less restrictive but still somewhat limited space in the house. Once again, a child has to be somewhat compliant in general to follow this rule. You cannot spend all day moving your child from space to space because he or she is misbehaving.
Also, parents sometimes find, with children who have very difficult personalities that the child will either trash their time out environment out of spite, or wait for their sentence to pass, come out and wreak havoc in the same or worse manner than before they went in. Suffice it to say that “time out” is not a universal cure for bad behavior.
Finally, remember that if your child will not accept a time out, you can “disconnect” and take a time out. Removing yourself from a situation can be a stress reliever for you. Your best approach here is to ask yourself if being in the same place at the same time as your child is escalating the conflict to a point of one or both of you are totally out of control. If the answer to this question is yes, take a break. Obviously, you cannot do this in every environment. Do not
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 76