I’m reading a book about Positive Discipline currently and have just reached the portion on Positive Time Outs. Time Outs have been portrayed in media as a punitive measure, with what cartoons showing grimacing cartoon figures facing a stony wall, with a chair in a neat right angle always to the corner of the room. However, some of the words used in the book particularly struck me: inviting the child to go to the safe cave, or even an adult retreating to the safe cave when he or she feels her emotions tethering on the surface. Even as an adult, we acknowledge that feelings are normal to have, yet emotional control is a constant endeavour – between gritted teeth, shaking fists, tears at the brim, and swear words in the head.
What is a safe cave? Where can we find these safe caves? They should be permanent fixtures; not in the enclove of a blanket fort in hotels, not in quickened breaths with collapsing feet on the bounds of a path in the park. Is it even a place, or a person, or a state of mind in the head?
Where is this permanence?
happenstance 