To feel pissed off that that I am also grounded?!

[nottonightjoesphine]

My DD 7 had a meltdown last night over wanting more tv than agreed. She ended jo having to be manhandled to bed (think hanging onto door frames, walls - you name it.)
She isn't usually like that but she can be very cheeky and is answering back a lot recently. She spent a good 30 monitors at the top of the stairs screaming her lungs out after that.

I decided to ground her today. I have never done this before and regret it already. We are very outdoorsy and like to be on the go all the time. The sun is shining and I resent so much having to sit in all day to make a point to her! My mum tells me I'm not consistent enough so perhaps she's right. DD has apologised and is crying so much today. I feel terrible.

I am a single parent and work all week so am desperate to get out. It's not about me though is it?

WWYD?

Mine neither because the child knows what's going to happen. Nothing worse than being told... right time to go NOW! An adult would find this unacceptable.

Another bug bear of mine is a parent not being able to say a proper "goodbye" when leaving their child somewhere. Be it nursery or wherever and just "sneaking" off. This makes the child very insecure and clingy. This is more to do with the parent not being able to cope with their child crying/misplaced guilt.

I hear you about the punishment and love thing. To be honest, this is the thing that usually breaks me, she cries and please for hugs and says she is sorry over and over. I work with children and our policy is that if a child has been mean or hurt another child, we accept their apology and move on. I struggle not to do this work my own child because she always seems so genuine.

Actually warning my children is what I've always done as not doing it would have resulted to complete meltdowns with both of my dcs.

I'm the firm believer that children need to have as much freedom as they can according their abilities. But also to have very clear boundaries on what is acceptable or not, I would actually say very clear routines so that they know what is expected from them as each point.

Eg it's time to go to school. You need to get dressed, the child chooses what to wear and is left to di it on his/her own. BUT the routine also says that you have be dressed by 8.30am and if you don't then X will happen (eg mummy will come, chose the clothes and will dress you for example. Or whatever will work best again according to age etc...).
It can also be 'bed at 8.00pm on school days and 8.30pm at weekends' etc...

So routines to know what will happen next, boundaries to know what is acceptable behaviours and then within these boundaries, as much freedom as possible.

OP tbh in the case you have been talking about, I would have done the same than you. Telling her, then talking her by the hand to take her to bed and finally just carrying her if she didn't want to.
I wouldn't have tried a punishment or threat or whatever. I found that by being consistent in doing that (you need to go there, if you don't i'll take your hand, then carry if need be) means that the dcs have rarely gone further than needing a 'helping hand'. But you do need CONSITENCY.

OP she is doing what they do best sometimes and manipulating the situation and due to her being "yours" its working.

Right in the middle of a punishment is NOT the time to give love and hugs, that's conflicting behaviour.

Thats why I don't believe in threats....

As in... if you dont do this now, in two days time that's going to happen. So much can happen in two days time that makes a punishment either impossible or null and void. Dealing with the matter there and then is always best.

Fascile - Luckily, it is not actually my responsibility to punish other adults, or try and teach them how to behave in socially acceptable ways.

I'm not suggesting it is, and I'm not advocating punishment. The point is - if another adult is rude or badly behaved towards you, or your family, how do you deal with it? Do you do nothing?

You can choose not to have that adult in your life, not really an option with a child.

I would of not let her watch any telly at all that suits better

Regarding the film: at 7yo, she probably didn't have the ability to really think about what leaving a film partway through would mean. Although perhaps neither you nor her really were aware of that before.

Well, now she does know. And now you do too, and are aware she is not really capable of assuring you that she can stop (which I imagine she will try again) -- I would think from now on you can take the role of authority and say that is not something that is among the possible choices.

Personally, I would have let the consequences be being carried up to bed just as she was, and perhaps restrictions on nighttime TV for a short time. But as you did ground her, you were right to not back down and also to manage to get out yourself.

TheBuskersDog
You can choose not to have that adult in your life, not really an option with a child.

That's an extreme sanction and might be a bit tricky if the offending person is e.g. a work colleague. The point is, as adults, we have to find other ways of dealing with unpleasant or undesirable behaviour from other adults. The obvious first step is talking, explaining, encouraging someone to communicate differently next time.

"It is however, my responsibility to teach my own children how to behave in socially appropriate way, and for them to be shown what the acceptable boundaries are."

laqueen- no one disputes that. What some of us are saying is that this can be achieved without punishment.

In fact I think punishment can hinder children from learning the implications of their actions. They learn to fear the punishment rather than learning about the consequences of their actions. Punishment is a blunt tool.

Genuinely contrite when she doesn't get her own way?

Yep. You're totally being played.

"The point is, as adults, we have to find other ways of dealing with unpleasant or undesirable behaviour from other adults. The obvious first step is talking, explaining, encouraging someone to communicate differently next time."

That's not what happens though.

If someone serves you in a shop and is unpleasant you don't go back, if someone at work has undesirable behaviour you avoid them or complain to their manager about them, if a family member is unpleasant you try not to spend time with them.

We don't teach other adults how to behave, we just limit interactions with them.

I think there is a bit of cross-talk in the punishment/no punishment thing. From what I can see it is a point of attitude and why sanctions are being imposed, not necessarily difference in the disciplinary actions. In same cases, the actions may be different, but in many cases they are identical. It seems to me that on occasion the 'we don't punish' camp can also come out with harsher consequences (e.g., instead of a week of no TV and a grounding, it could be no movies for years... which, I must say, I would in this case do -- no nighttime movies until the child's bedtime is later than the end of the movie).

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of punishment is that a child does something wrong, and you impose a punishment geared to (1) indicate to the child that the thing was wrong, (2) cause some level of unhappiness, (3) hopefully prevent future repeats of the behaviour because the child wishes to avoid the imposition of the unhappiness, and (4) ideally, you prevent future misbehaviour in other realms as well, as the child understands similar unhappiness could be brought forth for any transgression.

My understanding of consequences is that a child does something wrong, and you either impose a logical consequence (fighting over the iPad, take away the iPad) or let a natural consequence occur (won't wear coat, gets cold) with the aim of (1) teaching the child what happens when they do that behaviour, (2) that the thing that happens is not to their liking (unhappiness), (3) hopefully prevent future repeats of the behaviour because the child wishes to avoid the outcome of their behaviour (unhappiness), and (4) ideally, teach the child to think about consequences of other behaviours and avoid inappropriate ones because they can calculate that the consequence will be not to their liking.

I suggest that the actions of the parents can be identical in many cases, and many people who apply punishments do so with logical consequences (it makes sense!). One difference is that arbitrary sanctions (no TV for fighting with sister) are not imposed in the non-punishment case (unless the fighting was over TV...), meaning that a child who moans about the 'unfairness' of a sanction may feel more justified if it is arbitrary; whereas when it is a logical consequence, they may still moan about the unfairness, but in doing so will have to confront their own behaviour and how it caused that. Another difference comes in point 4, above, where punishment can serve to cause children to simply know what will happen (parents impose punishment) if they do something they know is wrong, whereas without punishment it requires them to think more and they may end up pushing more boundaries if they are not capable of thinking through a logical consequence on their own. On the other hand, once this process is learned, they may be able to better identify inappropriate behaviours that haven't been expressly forbidden?

Sorry for the long tangent, here, but this is the sort of thing I've been trying to get my head around. I often see arguments where it seems that people assume no punishment means no boundaries, and then argue that if you do something that makes the child unhappy, you are in fact punishing. I think that the actions can be very similar, which is why people can get so worked up over it, as they feel someone is telling them to do something different when they know that doing something different wouldn't work very well. But as people talk past one another, they don't realise they are doing the same thing.

Op I have worked with children for decades I have never treated my children like work children ever it won't work. When your dd is saying sorry mummy I love you mummy its a sign she knows she has crossed the line and distrating you from whats happening you need to try and detach from this and take charge because she is might grow from a manipulative 7 yr old to a manipulative teenager that will drain you, you love your dd but you don't need to be her friend set your limits be firm

Haven't read all replies but echoing what I think some others have said.

Never give out a punishment you don't intend to keep or that punishes you too.

In future let her know what the consequences of her actions will be if she behaves like this again.

Ds 6 has done this when getting off his xbox - he was banned from it for a week. Hasn't done it since.

tabulahrasa
If someone serves you in a shop and is unpleasant you don't go back, if someone at work has undesirable behaviour you avoid them or complain to their manager about them, if a family member is unpleasant you try not to spend time with them.

We don't teach other adults how to behave, we just limit interactions with them.

Really? So if somebody upsets you, you avoid them, rather than having a conversation about it? I can appreciate using an avoidance strategy for serious events or if there is a repeated pattern of behaviour and other avenues have been exhausted, but not as a general life strategy. Avoidance tactics wouldn't work well for issues with e.g. a boss or an issue with a child's school, which might need addressing to find a resolution.

murmuration, that's an excellent post. I think the arbitrary vs. non-arbitrary distinction might be the key one in the different camps. For instance, my 4yo took a little toy from his classroom the other day, and lied to us saying that he'd been told it was ok to take it home. I'm assuming the 'punishment' camp would imagine that the 'no punishment' camp would be stumped at what to do in that kind of situation, or at least from their telling of it. What we did (as 'no punishers') was firstly let him know in no uncertain terms that we were very cross and disappointed (ie gave him a bollocking), made him take the toy back and apologise to his teacher next morning, and told him we would now have to check his bookbag every afternoon at pickup to make sure it doesn't happen again (he hates this, as normally he won't let us near the bookbag until after we get home). Was that a punishment? I don't know. For me that was all natural consequences, whereas 'no tv' or 'no computer' would have been punishment. But maybe that's just semantics, i don't know.

Also, I could see he was remorseful, as I know him well enough to tell! If I'd felt that the message wasn't getting through, I might well have been tempted to go for arbitrary punishment, even though I'm dubious about the concept. So far, though, we've managed pretty well on the natural consequences - they've never pushed us far enough to need anything else.

zoe- I would have done the same as you. My children seemed to learn codes of responsible behaviour very easily without having arbitary punishments.

It depends what the issue is though, if it's just that a boss or teacher is unpleasant, I'd grit my teeth and deal with them when necessary, but I wouldn't be seeking out their company and I wouldn't be sitting them down to tell them how they're being unpleasant and what they should do about it.

If they were doing something completely inappropriate I'd go over their heads.

I can only think of a tiny handful of occasions where I'd be telling an adult how to behave and most of those would be fairly minor things.

tabulah, you can have a conversation, address a problem, say why you're unhappy etc without 'telling an adult how to behave'. If you can get someone to understand why you're unhappy, dissatisfied etc, then the other party might come up with a solution or remedy. In my experience, talking to people is often a successful way of sorting out a problem. Misunderstandings are frequently at the route of problems, and it's not worth writing somebody off because of an unintended upset. Gritting your teeth sounds like a stressful option.

But you do that with a child first anyway.

It's after that, if somebody is talking to you in a way that's upsetting and you've told them that and they continue to do it, that is the point at which you'd punish a child or decide that you'd had enough of an adult.

Nobody rational jumps straight to a punishment for a child when it's the first time they've demonstrated a behaviour and they don't know why it's not acceptable.