When we had the big meeting with all of Will’s teachers, therapists, and administrators before he entered the sixth grade (middle school in our district), his social worker suggested that Will should have a place of refuge at the middle school. This was his place where he could escape in order to calm himself down. In his case, we designated the Title One Room. He was allowed go in there and talk to the aide, read a book, work on his homework. Just repair himself. All of his teachers were in agreement, and it was written into his IEP.
What a good idea, I thought at the time. So at home, we designated a place of refuge for him. In our case, it was his room. We said, “You need to take refuge in your room to calm yourself down. Read a book. Look out the window. Would you like a snack to take with you? Listen to some music. When you are calmer, you can come out.” Sometimes after a little bit, Ralph or I would go to his room and talk with him. Other times, he would come back out on his own.
This was helpful for our family.
I think it mattered what we named it, too. Both to us and to Will. By calling it his place of refuge, it was communication to him that he was able to calm himself down, and we needed to calm ourselves down as well.
This was just one strategy for helping Will cope with his emotions. Later on, he didn’t need it as much and we developed additional strategies for coping.
annkilter 
Thanks for sharing a wonderful idea.
personally I think that we all need a pace of refuge, no matter the age, or time in our lives. I certainly needed mine today…I welcome the time to “heal” and rebuild. thank you for sharing =^_^=
I agree with you. And I think it’s so important that parents teach their children that it’s not only okay, but necessary, to take refuge at times.
I love that idea. It seems that a child’s room is often times made more into a place of punishment more than a refuge.
Sometimes it is good to be sent to one’s room to think about what one has done. On the other hand, I think we need to repurpose the “time out.” – Communicating that it is for cooling off, thinking, regaining self-control, etc. And repair.
Ann, it’s interesting how all these years later, when we have a form of communication not available to us when we were raising our kids to read about how you came up with the very same idea we did for Ted. His refuge spot was the school library. He was allowed to go whenever he needed a break and the librarian was one of his biggest champions. In fact it was her suggestion for him to go there. How wonderful it was when we had such good thinkers and compassionate people on our team. And although Ted took refuge at home in his room, what we didn’t do, that I think you did so well, was to name it as you did and to reinforce the positiveness of solitary moments. Good job!
There is a fair amount of serendipity involved in raising our youngsters. When we were raising our kids, we had to reimagine and repurpose. Normal “discipline” was not for us.
I often think about the fact that very little information, comparatively, was available to us then. But there were caring, imaginative, thoughtful people around us who worked with what they had.
You know Ann, as great as the internet can be, sometimes I entertain the thought that we just might have been better off without it. As you said, we relied on our instinct and ourselves and were concerned with what others did and comparison a great deal less.
Hi Ann what a fantastic idea I’m going to use that name for his room with my son,asap This time the internet did work for me!
On the other hand, good ideas can spread quickly via the Internet. 🙂