Think Time: A Follow-Up Strategy

We had another great workshop discussing behavior reflections on Monday at The One School. After the presentation was completed, and I started to pack up, I entered a further discussion with another mom. I shared with her an additional strategy to use in conjunction with behavior reflections. After my own self-reflection, I decided I wanted to pass this along to other parents who may try to use behavior reflections during their every day interactions at home. The strategy I will share and discuss is: “Think-Time”, commonly known in the education world as “Wait-Time”. 

Definition

“Think-time” is an even simpler strategy than behavior reflections, but requires just as much practice. Think-time is a strategically placed pause or period of silence after an adult speaks with the intention that the child will initiate the next part of the conversation. 

Benefits

Think-time is frequently used in classrooms, following a study published in the 1970’s. The original study showed that teachers waited less than one second for a student response before offering a prompt, answer, or dismissal. Increasing quiet time from one second to at least three seconds greatly increases the thoughtfulness of students’ answers (Rowe 1986). 

Recall the characteristics of a young child’s brain: concrete, emotional, plastic, ego-centric, and learn best by modeling. A plastic brain requires extra time to process since neurons are firing at different pathways to determine which direction to go. When our children have more think-time to process information and formulate a response, their responses become longer and more substantial. Additionally, quality conversations between children and adults increase and restless behaviors decrease (Rowe 1986). 

Although these results were demonstrated in classrooms, our knowledge about young brains would support the notion that by providing children with more time to process language, their responsiveness will increase. This is attributed to young minds taking more time to understand the language, call upon prior knowledge, make connections, and formulate inferences. All of this requires children to switch from an emotional thought pattern to a logical thought pattern. From a parenting standpoint, using a pause will create learning opportunities and logical thought patterns.  This pattern of communication will strengthen your connection with your child(ren), in addition to increasing desired behavior and decreasing undesirable behavior. 

Implementation

Just as behavior reflections take practice and time to feel natural, so will think time. During our busy days we try to accomplish so many tasks, it may feel counterproductive to slow down and take pause. However, practice pausing for three seconds. Make your behavior reflection, and count to three s-l-o-w-l-y (use the “Mississippi” method). As you become more comfortable with the three second pause, try increasing the length to five seconds. In these quiet moments, notice body language. Are you relaxed, focused, and signaling to your child that you are eager to hear their response? Are you continuing to focus on another task, turned away, or rolling your eyes? Even babies can interpret your nonverbal cues and will respond accordingly. Remembering that our goal is to encourage self-expression, self-awareness, self-esteem, and eventually self-regulation, allowing time for children to process, interpret, and respond to our reflections will enhance this parenting strategy. Ultimately our interactions will become more meaningful to both child and parent, strengthening our relationship with our child(ren).

“The first duty of love is to listen.”

- Paul Tillich 

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.”

- Anonymous