The Better Alternative to Time Out That Builds Emotional Strength

If you’re going to put your child on time out… go with them

Yes, you read that correctly.

It sounds counterintuitive… but let me explain.

When a child is having a tantrum or acting out, they’re expressing feelings they haven’t yet learned how to handle in a healthy way.

And those feelings matter.

Because suppressed emotions don’t disappear. They get stored.

In the body.
In the nervous system.
In patterns that can show up later as stress, anxiety, depression… even illness.

Whereas emotions that are expressed move through the body. They don’t need to be held onto. They are released.

Now consider a child’s experience of time out.
“I have these big feelings I don’t understand… and I’m being told to go away on my own.”

The message underneath can land as..
“My feelings aren’t welcome.”
“I have to deal with this alone.”
“If I want to belong, I need to hide this part of me.”

So the child adapts.
They shut the feelings down… because they need connection to survive.

Or their cries get louder… because they’re overwhelmed, scared, and don’t know what to do with what they’re feeling.

They are 2.
Or 4.
Or 8.
Or 12.

They don’t yet have the skills to regulate themselves.

Now consider a different experience.
“I’m having big feelings. I don’t know what to do with them. My parent says, ‘Let’s go into the other room. I’ll stay with you until you’ve processed this.’”

Now the child learns...
“My emotions are okay.”
“I’m not alone in this.”
“My parent can help me through it.”

And something shifts.
They feel safer.
The emotion moves through more quickly.
They begin to learn how to process what they’re feeling.
And over time, this becomes their internal wiring.

Now as a teenager… and later as an adult… they trust they can feel what they feel.
They don’t need to hide it.
Suppress it.
Or rebel against it.

They’ve learned that emotions can move through them… and that they are safe when they do.

I remember a moment with my son when he was three.
He was having a full-blown tantrum.
I took him into the bedroom and sat on the floor with him, holding him while he kicked and screamed.

I said calmly and firmly,
“It’s okay to feel all of your feelings. It’s not okay to kick and scream. I’m right here. I’ll stay with you until you’ve processed it.”

He cried even harder at first.
Then about a minute later… he just stopped.
A few more little sobs.
Another minute… and he said, “Can I go play?”
He was done.
The emotion had moved through him.


Today he’s 17.
And every now and then, when something feels intense, he asks me to come and lie down with him.
It’s rare.
And it’s a privilege to be asked.


But I know it was those moments of time in… not time out… that built that trust.

And this is where it goes deeper.
Emotions get stored in the body.
I’m still working through intense emotions decades later… because I didn’t have the tools or guidance to process them in a healthy way.

It shaped me.
It contributed to behaviours I’m not proud of.
It led me to put myself in unsafe situations as a teenager.
It showed up later as depression and anxiety in my mid-30s.

Not because anything was wrong with me.
But because I didn’t know how to feel what I was feeling.

That’s the hard truth.
We can’t teach our children what we haven’t embodied ourselves.

But we don’t have to be fully healed to support them.
We just have to be willing to start.

To sit with them.
To stay with them.
To not send them away when it gets uncomfortable.

Because when a child learns..
“I can feel this… and I’ll be okay.”
They grow into an adult who doesn’t need to numb, avoid, or run from their emotions.

They can face life.
They can face themselves.
And they know they’re not alone.

P.S. This is the work inside the Stressed to Best Parent Method.
Not just what to do in the moment… but how to respond in a way that builds your child’s emotional resilience, self-trust, and connection for life.
Because when you change how you lead… your child changes how they experience themselves.

And that changes everything.