Soft play incident - WIBU?!

[Sianilaa]

I took my three year old to a soft play place the other day. He was playing nicely most of the time but then I noticed he pushed a child out of the way to get on a slide first. I went straight over, took him aside and explained pushing/pushing in wasn't nice and he was to wait his turn. If he couldn't wait his turn and I saw him do it again, he would go in time out. He started kicking off because I'd removed him from the slide and was losing the plot - he ended up lashing out at me.

I picked him up, took him to a quiet bench away from the play area, against the back wall and explained hitting was unacceptable and he would do 3 mins time out. If he repeated it, we would go home. I stood about 1 metre away from him and turned my back while he did his time out. Close to him so he knew I was there but not giving him any attention. I was calm but firm - Supernanny would have been proud!

He was sobbing hard though, but stayed put. About a minute later a woman came rushing over to me, pushed past me and picked my son up and started cuddling/rocking him! She kept saying to him, "shhh, there there. It's not your fault you have such a cruel, abusive mummy. It's ok now."

I was so shocked, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open, catching flies for about a minute. When I got a grip, I told her to put him down and stop interfering when I was calmly disciplining my own child. This woman had a smaller child with her, plus a female partner. She put him down and went back to her partner loudly talking about how awful and cruel and damaging I was to my son. I lost my temper, and went over and said how dare she touch my son and interfere when I was trying to teach him hitting and pushing was wrong and that surely time out was better than screaming/swearing/smacking him?! I walked away shaking like a leaf.

Her partner came over a few minutes later and apologised, saying she had very strong views on discipline and ignorance and that she didn't agree with what I had done but that she shouldn't have done it or been so rude. At which point I said I wasn't ignorant in any way, and that they should be careful who they say these things to as next time they might get thumped by someone or ejected for inappropriately touching a child.

What would you have done?! Is time out cruel?! I didn't smack him or shout at him, but I did have to wrestle with him slightly to get him over to the time out spot I chose.

It's still making my blood boil just thinking about it.

cory, I certainly don't advocate "no discipline," although I would call it teaching and civilising, but I am absolutely opposed to any physical methods and I wouldn't personally use time outs and things like that.

I do agree with the whole idea of children wanting to fit in and an adversarial approach being counter productive. It's the old authoritative rather than authoritarian thing.

So Hully, if you come upon one of your children on top of the other punching him into a pulp, would you not gently lift the attacher off the one underneath? How long would you let him carry on hitting if he refused to listen to you?

If your child is damaging something in a shop and refusing to stop, you wouldn't take them by the arm and walk them off?

That is the level of physical discipline we are talking about here.

The OP did not smack or hit or otherwise physically chastise her ds. She just removed him.

I certainly don't advocate physical methods in the sense of active physical chastising; we've run across each other on enough anti-smacking threads.

But I would feel my mum had let us both down if she had let me get a second whack in with that china doll.

My point is that my parents already did all the mindful things on the list we saw. They were great with attention and understanding a child's pov and distracting and explaining. They were not at all punitive in their approach.

I still thought my little brother needed a wallop with the china doll and I wouldn't particularly have seen any reason to restrict myself to one wallop. They thought it was their job to stop me after the first one. In retrospect I can see their point.

As for my friend, she also did all the understanding and listening bit, but her dd didn't listen to her, because she didn't have to. When she wanted to hit her siblings, she wanted that more than she wanted stickers on a star chart or whatever. So she carried on.

yy cory, of course.

I used to beat my ds and dbs relentlessly, but always out of sight and with the promise of retribution if they told...still feel bad today.

I wish a parent had made me understand why it was wrong, but parents didn't talk to children in those far off days.

Didn't teach emotional intelligence I mean, could have really used it!

Miaow, I think it is simply not true that you don't get people who are advocates of more formal discipline not vocalising this to people who are evidently more informal in their approach. It is more likely that you will hear someone in public comment on how ineffective someone is being in talking to their child or people rolling their eyes at you because they think you look weak in dealing with a situation by just talking to a child. My own experience has been just that and aquaintances/friends have been quite happy to advise me to tap my daughter on the bottom when she was 13 months to teach her to stay still for nappy changing. I've been told to strap her into the buggy when she has run off from me in a park. I've been told to leave her to cry to sleep at night as she is old enough to know that she should be sleeping and 'crying isn't going to harm her'.

In contrast, you just don't see or hear the opposite. Indeed, nearly everyone has said that this woman should not have intervened, even those like myself who aren't keen on 'time out'. Personally, I've never seen anyone in public comment on someone using these discipline techniques and my DS goes to a school that is full of what you would deem 'liberal' parents but I have never heard anybody make these 'passive aggressive' comments you speak of. People will make their opinions known on MN as it is a discussion forum. I'm not sure why it is deemed to be 'emotional bullying'. People who don't agree with 'time out' have explained their arguments which in some cases may have included some emotive language but that is how they choose to express themselves, I don't see how this could be interpreted as being a bully- essentially not agreeing with the OP's technique.

People who go on about wanting to cry for the poor little children and it making them physically sick and there hearts break when its very clearly something that is not child abuse, are emotionally manipulative passive aggressive bully's.

They are comments purely designed to imply a child is being seriously abused and the person the comments are directed towards is the abuser.

I'm one of these lefty parents who is lucky enough to have very well behaved children who require very little other than the occasional reminder about behaviour but even I (who would consider time out to be for the most serious issues) am happy to call out the quite frankly pathetic comments for what they are.

So true Sock

OP you were not unreasonable! The other woman was a loon! Only on MN would you be criticised for ( your very restrained) response to something this OTT.
Those of you saying OP was aggressive & rude where do you live ffs! Not sure how you manage in the real world with real big scary thugs!

Wasn't there only one or two posters on the entire thread that used such emotive language??

I disagree with 'time out' but haven't attacked OP. People are getting very defensive about their right to punish their children here...

Well OP, I think you we're dnbu!!

I use timeout for my kids and it works. I am quite a strong believer in discipline and rules.

My kids seem well Adjusted and happy. They know what's expected of them. Nowt stranger than folk!!

Some of the points in that article about attachment parenting basically sum up why there are a lot of children who 'rule the roost' these days.

I don't think you need to use 'physical' punishment such as time out/smacking/removing from situations to ensure your child knows right from wrong but letting them do as they please which is basically what it is saying is why children think its ok to snatch, hit, tell their parents to shut up etc etc.

When I was a teenager we would never have spoken to an adult rudely and it was a tiny minority who did, now it seems many children think this is ok and their parents think its funny or cute as they are just 'expressing' themselves and being children. What a load of rubbish!

So you're accusing people of making passive aggressive remarks with your outright aggressive view on that- oh the irony!

I haven't missed your point, i am disputing it! If someone's OPINION is that 'time out' is emotionally abusive then that is their opinion. Just as yours is that it isn't (I assume). What is the difference? My MIL feels sorry for children who have no boundaries, she thinks boundaries offer security. Her idea of boundaries is enforcing quite strict, formal discipline and structure. She is using emotive language but it's her opinion- I don't agree with her but so what, is she implying that those that dont agree are neglectful in their duties as parents- probably. Oh well, I don't feel like the victim of a bully. I think if I did then it would be my problem to deal with.

My brother and SIL are keen 'time out' advocates and we are not very alike at all in how we parent but neither of us feel victimised we just get on with it- you know just tolerating each others' opinions, as you should do in a democratic, civilised society!

This thread has actually had me laughing at some of the comments. Fuck the nutty woman picking the random child and basically calling it abuse, no the mother disciplining her child is obviously in the wrong.

I do time out for my 3 year old. (4 in Nov) He is put on his bed and I leave the room. When hes ready to say sorry he will either shout me or come to me. He needs to calm down, if hes doesn't calm he lashes. So people might think its cruel but I don't give a shit.

Nothing wrong at all with saying I don't/ wouldn't use xyz method of disapline or punishment because I think its emotionally or physically abusive.

But when you jump so far over that to say things like it makes you weep or feel sick or anything along those lines its a bit much.

Children being beaten or sexually abused or neglected or screamed at and called names or starved of either attention/ love or any needs then that's worth crying over that's worth distress and its very much worth calling people on it but a normal standard form of disapline that causes no physical harm or threat of physical harm is not. And playing the emotive card is manipulative.

Golden,

Your previous post is self contradictory. If you feel that time out is "emotionally abusive" as you stated, how can you possibly "get on with it" with your brother and SIL? After all, you are directly implying that they are child abusers. Can you really rub along with a child abuser?

Thinking that one parenting method is preferable to another is absolutely fair enough and that is where opinions come into play. Once you start labelling something as "abuse", however, it is completely different. The whole term "abuse" has been seriously devalued as of late. It should be applied to something that you might call the RSPCC about, not a timeout. The concept of a time out being "abusive" is laughable.

And equally risible is the idea of someone literally crying for a child that they don't know being placed in a 3 minute time out. They are either lying to make a passive aggressive point or in need of psychological help.

I think you carried out a perfectly acceptable discipline and fair play to you for sticking to your guns and doing it in a public place. I have done 'Time Outs' in other peoples houses but rarely in public as I was so flustered at people looking on at my unruly lot that at times I just left the scene of the crime and took them home. Well done on remaining calm with a misbehaving child and on not punching that arseholes persons lights out

I didn't say that 'I' felt it was emotionally abusive, I said that 'if someone's OPINION is that 'time out' is emotionally abusive'. So no, I didn't say that is what I believed. Indeed, one of my posts to the OP stated that I don't think it was abusive. No contradiction has occurred!

sockreturningpixie, I would imagine those who argue that it is abuse would be able to provide reasons for that and consequently are concerned for the child not the adult in that scenario.

Some people are more emotional than others, you cannot automatically assume they are being manipulative with it.

Obviously they are but what on earth does that have to do with weeping there heart breaking and being sick?

Golden,

Apologies, must have misread your post.

As I said re the people "crying" they are either manipulative or are not on the normal psychological spectrum and may need help. If they are "weeping" over a time out, do they avoid all newspapers for fear of complete emotional collapse?

I can never, ever get over how much other adults think its appropriate to interfere with my parenting (I have posted about this in the past). This woman was on a whole different level of crazy compared with most of the comments I have endured, though! I completely understand why you felt dumbstruck. Time out is not cruel or unusual punishment, and you followed through immediately when the child pushed, and then immediately when he escalated his behaviour towards you.