[livelaughlove22]

I'm taking care of my friends 5 year old girl while she gets help for depression. I will have her for at least a year. The little girl is in therapy for sexual abuse and her therapist told me putting her in timeout is effective. She always argues about getting a timeout and I am not sure of I can tell her she has to go to timeout because she being punished or what I should say.

[Victoria'smom]

We always use the same wording all the time "You have to go to time out because you did or said X think of better ways to get x. Time out doesn't start until you are quiet but I'll talk to you after."

[A Red Panda]

"Time out is a place to think about why I ask you not to do X, and for you to think about how I am feeling right now because you didn't listen."

Don't use the word punishment. It's a reprimand or a consequence, but the word punishment just makes people think it's someone being mean.

[Can't Stop Crying]

I always tried to avoid the use of the word punishment, just my thoughts. In my childhood - I equated punishment with "I was bad".

For my boys, I tried to use words like thinking time or taking a break to calm down or just plain time out.

If they asked why, I explained that their behavior was not safe, hurtful, etc.

I tried really hard to reiterate that they were not bad, their behavior was not okay (or something along those lines)

After time out, I always made sure to tell them that I still loved them and that everybody makes mistakes and tried to get them to let me know what led up to the behavior so we could come up with better ideas for the next time...

Yeah, I'd shy away from the word "punishment" as this child has already been traumatized by stuff no child should ever have to go through which could very well feel to her like punishment of some kind anyway.

Also remember one minute per age (5 minutes) ... Because time and space to a child is perceived totally different than it is to an adult, and sit with her for those 5 minutes if you have to in order to ensure she observes the timeout.

Utilize the time explaining that since she did this, she must sit in time out until she learns that it isn't okay to do whatever it is she did to be put into timeout in the first place.

I hope that made sense and wasn't too redundant or like a run on sentence!

[Can't Stop Crying]

Just a side note - my youngest son was a wanderer...he would be so caught up in what he was doing (riding his bike, trying to catch a toad, collecting things) that he would just follow what he was after and not pay attention to the fact that he had left his "boundary area"
That was his most frequent reason for time out....we talked a lot about what he could do the next time, like ask me or his older brother to go with him. I also talked to him about how it made me feel when I couldn't find him (he was literally the kind of kid who could be there one second and gone in the blink of an eye).

just an example of how I used time out....before, during, and after.

Also, I agree with the one minute per year of age, but with this situation - maybe starting at 3 minutes instead of 5 and gradually increasing.

[Can't Stop Crying]

How is she doing livelaughlove? How are YOU doing with all this?