To Think It Wrong To Lock Children In Their Bedrooms?

[midori1999]

I was babysitting for a friend last night. She used to have stairgates at her DS's bedroom doors. I noticed they now have locks on the doors, on the outside.

I asked friends DD why there were locks on the boys bedroom doors now, was it to lock them out during the day so they don't untidy their rooms too much and she said 'no, the boys sometimes have to be sent to their rooms when they are naughty and won't stay in without the locks'.

I am pretty sure friends DD wouldn't lie, and she clearly didn't think it at all odd to lock the boys in their rooms. The boys are known for being very, um, wilful and my friend does struggle to deal with them and is currently pregnant again.

I do feel awkward about mentioning it to my friend and haven't so far, but I am concerned. I am right to be concerned or am I being horribly judgemental?

Same when I moved into my house TheCrackFox

Think it's wrong generally, not to mention unsafe in case of fire and not conducive to toilet training either, surely!

Depends on the circumstances, Mumi- I see your point about toilet training at night, and I wonder what I'll do!

But the cold fact is that I cannot allow dd2 to get out of her room, or she would be in danger on a nightly basis.

My DS also has autism, so instead of the lock I have to be alert throughout the night and get far less sleep than I should! but I appreciate it's not for all circumstances.
Presumably social services didn't offer you night help in lieu of the lock/gate either. We don't have it but as we seem ineligible for practical help I know we wouldn't have a bat's chance in hell of getting it if I asked anyway.

I havelocks on a few doors (going to be all soon) to keep the DSs out of rooms! DS1 has figured out the child locks in the kitchen, and DS2 is obsessed with putting things in the loo so I got those 'star key'locks put on some doors so if I am cleaning a room, I can leave it stripped and airing and lock the DSs out (not when I'm in there, when I am done), or bleach the bathroom after a poo incident and lock them out while it's soaking etc. I have also held the door on DS1 having a massive tantrum before, and a few times when he has kept getting out of bed for a min or two, but never would I lock a child in. Onecan only hope the parents use this rarely and stay the other side of the door and negotiate calm.

anyone looking for an alternative to locks I found a great thing by Yale for my DSs window but it's meant for doors (because I don't want to lock their window incase of fire, nor do I want them to escape!) it's a sensor thingy so if the window/door is opened an alarm goes off. You can get a system for a hundred or so, but a little unit for one window/door was £20-£30.

or put in the little cheap star key locks (no need to change handles etc, it leaves a small hole) on all the other doors i.e kitchen, bathroom, living room etc. so if your child gets out they can only go into your room for example, but obviously that wouldn't work for all layouts if there is anissue with stairs etc...

I would never put locks on any bedroom doors.
I did a "fire exercise (pre-child) and I tried to find my way out of a smoke filled two storey house.

It was terrifying.

So much so, that I have a fire escape ladder, window hammer and fire alarms in every lightbulb.

So no; I wouldn't lock a child in a room.

If you have DC who are likely to wander in the night and harm themselves then it's not such a bad thing, as long as the locks are quick release so if the house is on fire you're not scrabbling for keys. (Odds of house catching fire are probably less than odds of wndering DC hurting themslves).

No I would never lock anyone in their room.

DD3 sleepwalks and I still wouldn't do it (she wanders safely around the house, up and downstairs) but I do have bolts high up on both back and front doors to keep her from letting herself out if the fancy strikes her.

I used to send them to their rooms and tell them to come down when they had calmed down and were ready to behave themselves. They decided the length of their own time outs for the first time out in other words. I sent them back up if they resumed fighting or whatever but the second time I used the timer with a ten minute minimum.

Its wrong - if there was a fire how would they get out.

Victorian's useed to lock children in Cupboards.

They may end up fearing the bedroom and then have sexual problems over control.
Speak to her or write to here.

Needs to go on a non violent communication type course for herslef. Perhaps she is violent and by looking them in she is actually protecting them from harming them.

She needs to see a doctor.

I have locked my kids in their rooms usually when they are just at the stage where they are coming out of a cot into a proper bed.

Its' never been necessary to do it more than a few times for each of them as they soon learn to stay in bed!

I do think the "what if there is a fire?" argument is a bit weak to be honest. As long as the door can easily be unlatched by an adult from the outside, there is no problem and it is actually safer to ensure that internal doors remain shut in your house. The child cannot be expected to get out of the house under it's own steam at this age and is reliant on you as an adult to come and get it out ...... ok, if the child is 7, maybe that is different but I can't see myself locking a child of that age in in the first place

also worth saying that simply turning the doorhandles upside down is great for stopping toddlers escaping!!

I don't even shut my DD's door (4years old) or my DN's when he stays over! They just stay in unless they need the toilet but i never send to bedroom as a punishment either. The thought of locking her in makes me feel a little worried and stressed about it! (yes she is pfb lol)

I don't like the idea of locking a child in their bedroom. I have held the door shut for about a minute if DS has been really really naughty, like kicking us or something (has only happened a couple of times) but we don't have a hallway or anywhere else that we could put him so we had no choice but to put him in his room.

I know my dad and step mum used to have a lock on my brothers door years ago but he would always be up wandering around at night. We had a stairgate at the top of the stairs but he would get over it from a very young age so the lock was necessary. I woke up one night to find him in the middle of my room having emptied every single box I had and you couldn't see the floor. He could also climb over the gate from the top stair where the gate was right on the top. This was before they had higher gates which wouldn't have made a difference anyway because of the way he used to get up and over.

It must be hard when you have 3 children and are pregnant but there must be better ways to deal with wilful children.

We have a hook and eye on DS1s bedroom door, which we use at night when he goes to bed. If we didn't he would simply roam free trashing upstairs until we stopped him, and then when we went downstairs he would carry on. We have a very tiny 2 up 2 down house and no locks on any of the other internal doors. Our storage/cupboards etc can't be put out of his reach as there's just no room to put anything anywhere else. It would cost us a fortune to fit locks/childlocks on all the other doors/drawers/cupboards and we just can't afford it. A hook and eye cost 99p and can easily be 'shouldered' in an emergency. He is a highly resourceful boy with a taste for the, erm, mischievious, and has already (pre-hook) been found balancing up his toys to stand on to get into cupboards/filled the toilet with toilet roll multiple times/pulled all my makeup out and emptied all over my bed/pulled all the books and photos out of the bookcase and thrown them down the stairs/emptied the toilet water out of the toilet on the bed - to name but a few incidents. He's just that kind of hugely physical, challenging boy, that can't really be left unsupervised at the moment. (but charming, bright, affectionate and funny too!)

We had DS2 last year, and for now (until they go in together) his cot is in an alcove on the landing, and he would get no peace at all if we let DS1 roam free when he goes to bed.

When he goes to bed he doesn't stand at the door wailing - he knows its bedtime, we have a nice story, then he plays in his room until he wants to go to sleep (he can do the lights himself and has a drink and his potty). We also have the child monitor on and have a fire alarms. If he calls we go to him. We are close enough in our room to hear his snoring at night.

If he becomes especially hyperactive and/or physical in the daytime (and I do mean literally bouncing off the walls hyperactive)and I can't at that moment take him for a walk or down the swings to run off some of the energy, then he has the option of going outside to his playhouse, or having some time in his room (yes, with the hook on). His choice. It gives me the time to regroup, or finish what I need to do before focussing on him again. We live in one room downstairs with a galley kitchen - it can get claustrophic and if we can't get outside then sometimes we both need 5 minutes.

When we eventually move to a bigger house, we will assess his behaviour and our new environment and see if the hook can go. I hope it will, but for now, for his safety, and my sanity it stays.

I used to get locked in my room by my mum,she certainly wasnt abusive,i used to trash things when angry,so it was better trashing my room than the whole house.

My instinct is to balk at this, I don't like it.

But I read bitoffun's post, and thought who I am to judge, I'm not in a situation that warrants such extreme measures.

I am dismayed to hear the usual cries of abuse btw.

I don´t agree, but assume that they are being locked in for a limited length of time as a punishment, not locked in overnight.

I put a cabin lock on the dcs' bedroom when dd was born as I was worried that ds would wake dd or even hurt her when she napped. I stopped using it once I could trust him. After that I might have used it a handful of times to keep ds in time out, for a couple of minutes at a time. I've never used it at bedtime, or over night as I'm quite happy for ds to come into our room. I was fairly shocked by a parenting magazine which suggested locking toddlers in their room to teach them to go to bed. But I certainly don't think it's necessarily abusive to have lock on the door or to be used as your friend is, as long as they aren't locked in for long periods of time.

I don't like children being shut in their rooms if they've been naughty but I don't have problem with a hook and eye to keep a very young child ( or an older child with SN)in at night. My ds2 could climb out of his cot and negotiate his safety gate before he was 2 (and on one occasion fell top to bottom down the stairs having done this). My sleepwalking ds1 used to come down and open the front door - I had to hide the key which is far from ideal in a fire.

Fire wise is is actually safer to have internal doors closed completely at night.

I have thought about this a lot and have concluded that a child that won't do as it's told without them being locked in simply needs a different approach to find their currency. Although I have been tempted as dd1 is being a piggin' nightmare at bedtime! Just the thought of locking a NT child in their room is wrong, for me.

We used a stairgate for ds1 when he went from a cot to a bed, as we feared he would wonder in the night. We used it for 18 months until we felt he was old enough to know he should stay in his room or come straight to our room if he needed us. It will go back on when ds2 goes into a bed. I would not lock them in their rooms though, we have no locks on any doors inside the house and that includes the bathroom! I can understand that in some circumstances it is necessary, as mentioned by some on here.

This sparked a huge angry debate on MN previously.
I don't really have a problem with it if it's done within limits/judiciously/as absolutely necessary to ensure everyone's sanity and well-being.

In the case of a fire, how can you be sure that an adult could get to the door and unlock it in time? A fire can engulf a house in a few minutes, and hot, choking smoke can seriously impair your ability to breathe, find your way around, and unlock a door.