“The “Time Out” method allows you to explain to the child that he is subject to certain rules, as we all are”

It is sometimes perilous to approach clinical psychology from the angle of philosophy, politics or sociology, as demonstrated by the platform of the philosopher Pierre Vesperini (The worldFebruary 18)protesting against the “Time Out” [« temps mort »] including the psychologist Caroline Goldman explained how it works in an interview Few days ago (The world of February 15) [le « Time Out » consiste à mettre un enfant à l’écart pour un court moment].

Conducting an attack against an educational tool from the clinic with the only experience of its own children when we see, every day in our consultations, children and parents in pain, can only lead to political and social confusion.

Any pedagogical concept can be related to a behaviorist theory as long as we want to call it that because educating means enabling the child to acquire appropriate behaviors. The “Time Out”, stemming from Anglo-Saxon currents, is nonetheless the signifier of the break. It is a pity to leave it with this English name rather than renaming it with a word like “pause”, “scansion” or “punctuation”, which would perhaps put the subject back at the heart of its act.

Cooking recipe

In a few years, the child became the 8^e wonder of the world, at the center of the extreme attention of his parents who never let him go. They are encouraged to do so by the scientific discourse which pushes them, for example, to keep the baby for the first six months in their room to prevent sudden infant death syndrome, which has nevertheless remained stable for thirty years (approximately 4/10,000), if we cross-reference INSEE data on births in 2022 with those of Public Health France on unexplained deaths before one year.

The link is established from the outset in anxiety – when it is not anxiety – as a certain number of young mothers come to testify. On the lookout for all the signs, the infant and his parents are in constant contact which, supported by technology, reinforces this seamless world day by day.

If Caroline Goldman comes to give her advice in podcasts, which risks – as for Francoise Dolto (1908-1988) in her time – to be used as a cooking recipe, is that she witnesses, like all those who listen to children in pain, an evolution of the symptomatology . From the little girl of barely 2 years old who wakes up fifteen times a night to maintain in an incessant ballet the anxiety of her totally exhausted parents, to the clastic crises of this little boy of 4 and a half years old who cannot bear the slightest frustration.

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