Is "Blanket Time" a good way to teach my children?

What is Blanket Time?

Blanket Time is a technique proposed by the "-wise" approach to parenting. They have several categories divided by age, including "Babywise" and "Toddlerwise." Blanket Time involves placing a blanket on the ground and ensuring your child stays on the blanket while they play for a given amount of time. The purpose is to teach the baby boundaries. There is also room play time and independent play time which involve the baby/child learning other types of boundaries.

How Blanket Time is implemented seems to vary depending on the parents and their belief systems. Some parents keep the baby on the blanket by smacking them each time they go off the blanket. Other parents simply place the baby back on the blanket each time they start to venture off until eventually the child learns not to leave.

Is Blanket Time a good idea?

Whenever I ask a question like this, I start by trying to understand what something is as thoroughly as I can. Then I ask why it might be good and why it might be bad. Then I weigh the pros and cons and make a judgment, which is rarely final as I'm almost always willing to keep an open mind.

Why might Blanket Time be a good idea? It is supposed to teach boundaries, and boundaries can be a good thing. At a young age, boundaries keep your child safe. As they get older, they need to learn there is a time and place for certain actions, and that they need to trust you and respect you as their parent.  

Why might Blanket Time be a bad idea? How does it teach boundaries? At what cost? What boundaries is it teaching? Blanket Time is teaching your child that their parent has told them to keep their body in a relatively small space and not leave for any reason. The child is too young to ask or understand why. The parent motivates the child to stay on the blanket either with smacking (fear) or repeatedly placing them back on the blanket (breaking their will). Eventually, you will have a compliant child, but at what cost? Whether it is intentional or not, the main thing you are teaching your child is to accept a boundary given to them by you (and any outside force) without reason and without question--either because they will be punished if they don't or because it is pointless as you are stronger than they are and you will eventually wear them down. This is actually the opposite of what I want my children to learn.

The Montessori method has a much better solution. First, you keep young children safe and free up time and energy for you as a parent, not by teaching your child to stay in a small area where they will be safe and allowing them to play with one or two items, but instead by giving your child a relatively large space that is completely safe and they have many items to explore. Montessori also recommends mats to teach children order, organization, and self-control. But the child places toys on the mat; it is not the child who is placed on the mat like he is an object.

Proponents of Blanket Time rightly notice the need for babies to learn self-control. But they teach it in a way that does not translate to skills a healthy adult should have. If my boss tells me to do something that I don't want to do, then I am going to ask myself why he wants me to do it. Ultimately, I will reason through if I need to submit or if I should resist. This willingness to question authority until I have good reason to comply protects me from abuse of all sorts and allows me to see when systems should be changed for the betterment of all.  

Many people simply accept what someone in authority tells them to do. Humans already have a tendency to do this. My job as a parent is to actively shape my children's ability to mentally question those in authority when my children have concerns and determine when they should take action and when they shouldn't. I start by focusing on safe exploration, freedom, and independence blended with cooperation, sharing, and empathy. 

And that does not involve making sure they will choose to stay in a 2 foot by 2 foot square just because I told them to.