What does Caroline Goldman say about timeouts as a parenting tool?
Caroline Goldman is a strong advocate for the timeout as a core disciplinary tool, arguing that it sends children a clear signal about which boundary they have crossed while allowing everyone involved to calm down. In her book Go to Your Room, she outlines a list of forbidden behaviors starting from age one and recommends timeouts of at least 30 minutes for children over the age of four — a duration that directly contradicts most established research on the subject, which calls for significantly shorter periods.
Goldman's position on timeouts sits at the heart of a fierce national debate in France between traditional disciplinary parenting and the newer "positive parenting" movement championed by figures like psychologist Isabelle Filliozat. For Goldman and her allies — who numbered over 350 early childhood experts when they signed an open letter in Le Figaro in 2022 — the problem with the gentle parenting wave is that it left children without the clear limits they need. The timeout, in her framework, is precisely that limit made concrete and felt.
The pushback was swift and organized. Some 280 early childhood experts signed a competing open letter in Le Monde specifically opposing the use of timeouts — an unusually direct rebuttal in French public intellectual life. The disagreement is not merely about duration; it reflects a deeper conflict about what children need from adults. You can follow the full exchange between these two camps in the episode on The Daily.
"Parents were essentially abandoned by adults with an exclusively empathic attitude — and for Goldman and her allies, that is exactly why it is time to go back to a more disciplinary form of education."
— Madeline Schwartz, reporter, The New York TimesAbout Madeline Schwartz
Madeline Schwartz is a reporter for The New York Times, based in Paris. She grew up between New York and Paris, attending school in both cities — the child of an American mother and a French father who separated when she was a baby.
This bicultural upbringing is not incidental to her reporting: it gives her direct, lived experience of both French and American approaches to childhood, schooling, and family life. She knows from the inside what it means to be raised under two very different sets of rules.
That firsthand perspective shapes the authority and nuance she brings to covering the parenting debate in France — a story that is, at its core, about what values a society chooses to transmit to its children, and who gets to decide.
See also
Caroline Goldman is a psychologist who works as a therapist for children in a suburb south of Paris, and the daughter of famous French pop star Jean-Jacques Goldman. She has become an inescapable figure in French media, arguing that gentle parenting has left children without the structure they need.
Isabelle Filliozat is a 68-year-old major figure in the positive education movement in France, widely read and present on television, Instagram, and other platforms. Her book on positive parenting sold half a million copies in France, making her the most visible voice on the gentle parenting side of the debate.
Positive parenting, as it is known in France, originated in English-speaking countries including the United States and Australia, and began making its way into French culture as a new generation of parents sought alternatives to the country's traditionally strict approach to raising children.