To think that the whole 'naughty step' concept is tosh

[mrsruffallo]

It is isn't it? Does anyone even keep it up? Naughty step, naughty corner, the whole concept seems wrong somehow. Yet it is always the first thing advised by many self proclaimed parenting experts. Don't you think it's time we called them on it?

I agree with taking the heat of a situation and going somewhere neutral, not parking a toddler on the stair or chair of shame.

NickiFury not sure how being sent to you room is any different to a time out.

I'm going to ask my adult kids about what they thought about time outs later. It will be interesting to get their point of view.

I liked the straightforwardness of it. I think my kids did too but I'll have to check.

Whatever you do I think the most important things are consistency and clarity.

I was answering the OP and "naughty step".

Yeah consistancy is key to whatever you do ime

I think being sent to a bedroom could be more distressing for some children (would have been for mine) due to the being sent away/isolating aspect. It's not an approach I have chosen to take but the principle is the same as time out on a step/chair/spot.

I don't think it's the same at all, they can do what they want in their rooms, cry and rail at the injustice without an audience etc, they can mess around with their stuff and assimilate what happened in their own time. My dc especially my dd would have found it excruciating to be put on a stair or chair that she knew was designated "naughty".

I agree that some children might struggle with it though, after all I can't speak for all children.

My kids laughed in the face of the naughty step. If a child is being defiant, kicking off, having a tantrum etc. then on what planet would they happily sit on a step just because I said so? We only ever tried it about twice, it's clearly pointless to keep telling a non-compliant child to sit on a step. We found pasta jar / reward chart and stickers much more effective. You can't make a child do something, but you can bestow the sticker, or not, as that's entirely in your power.

Tbh I am always amazed at kids who do just sit on the naughty step because they are told to.

Yep used it successfully for years as a mum and a cm.

However what ever method you use it's no good just giving up as soon as the child rebels or gets up. Tough. They do as they are told.

If you can't control the toddler just forget the teenager. You already lost.

Agree Bosky it would have escalated things in our house. Dd would never go down without a fight and it would have been a lot worse to try to force that upon her. Nine times out of ten she will go off to her room, issuing defiant threats as she goes, five minutes later I hear a wailing "Sorry, Mum".

I should add mine are largely well-behaved too – though they had some tantrum-tastic years and can squabble for Britain, we managed to instill manners, decent behaviour, not hitting and all that - without the naughty step.

However, I do think there is such as thing as "naughty" and it's not bad to use that word and for children to know what it means. After all it's definitely something that applies to grown-ups (whack someone in a pub or steal a car and you will be in trouble) and I think it's part of growing up to understand the concept.

I have no truck with people who say things like "we don't use the words No or Naughty in this house." OK then but if your child has just whacked my child with a stick, I will agree with my child that they were naughty so suck it up.

Agree anyone who says they don't use the words no or naughty to their child is quite frankly Barmy. Poor kids. What a shock when they go to school.

Tbh I am always amazed at kids who do just sit on the naughty step because they are told to

The thing is, all kids are different. Mine will sit on a step or a chair in time out, but if I tried to put her in her room to calm down she could have either run out or, if I'd shut the door, screamed blue murder. Ditto reward charts and jars have so far not made any impact

Surely the thing is simply to find what is effective for that particular child, whether it's time out for less great behaviour or rewards for better behaviour?

I do agree, Bosky, that kids need to learn that somethings just aren't acceptable and some things are just plain naughty. All kids will do it at some point, and sometimes the behaviour is so naughty (deliberate biting, say) that it requires you to make it very clear that this is unacceptable behaviour.

I used an area as time out. I would send them somewhere quiet and without stimulation to think about what they were doing, or some gumph.
It worked.
When you have two that are arguing and winding each other up you need a way to give them space.

i never forced them onto a step (one
House didn't have a step). I didn't care if they stood or sat. The point was a time out.

Someone said further up about it being used wrongly and yes I agree. I have seen parents who want the child to sit on the step and force the issue so if the child stands they are screamed at to sit down. Or using it for really daft reasons.

I have given a time out with the tantrums as well. As it, ignoring the child and not engaging. Engaging escalates the tantrum. Then after time out, engage just as I would with a non tantrum time out.

My children have not suffered. They are now happy, independent adults.

I also used stickers. But stickers don't solve quickly the issue of a biting or aggressive child.

Yes you're right Thurlow – I think naughty step is fine if it really works for your child, and is being used reasonably i.e. not frightenng levels of force as others have said. They are all different.

What bugs me really is the attitude that the naughty step cures all ills and all children could be little angels if their parents would only try it.

DS was a terrible tantrummer at 2/3. He would scream for literally hours – over something tiny like his cake being the wrong way up – and be unable to calm down, it was awful. I got really quite fed up of being asked "have you tried the naughty step?" or even worse being smugly told things like "well we always put Archie on the naughty step and we don't have a problem!" As I tried to wrestle shrieking purple-faced DS out of the cafe etc.

The idea of finding out what works for each child and treating them as individuals is a lovely idea but I'm curious to know if other posters think it would work when you have a number of children close in age.

I cant imagine what would have happened if I had given each of my DC child specific consequences punishments . I've always found my DC were concerned with being treated fairly.

Obviously if you have DC with particular behavioural issues then a one consequence fits all approach might not work.

Personally I suspect many of the issues come from having more children in a short timescale.

He has a temper tantrum, that's naughty

I would disagree there - being overwhelmed by emotions and the perceived unfairness of a situation isn't naughty in my book, but a perfectly natural response to being in a world where you don't always understand the rules. I don't think feeling angry is naughty, although the way you express it can be, so I would never punish my son for being unable to control his emotions as that seems counter-productive. However, he will occasionally get to a point where he will call me and tell me that he 'can't calm down', which is when being left alone to get the feelings out gives way to cuddling and talking and remembering the things he can do to help him let his anger out in an appropriate way.

I've never tried it with my DD (now 4), I know her, and I know it wouldn't work. She is very strong willed, and if having a meltdown about something, tantrum, or generally playing up, then what works is me just walking away. Learning this has been a long hard process with a lot of shouting (useless) crying (both of us) and wine I tell her that she's not listening to me so I won't listen to her, then just carry on with whatever I'm doing as if she isn't there. It usually only takes a few minutes before she calms down and comes to me to say sorry and we have a hug. It has once or twice taken a lot longer... No idea yet whether the same will work on DD2 as she's only 1!

MyNewAccount you said "finding out what works for each child is a lovely idea but..." - but surely you kind of have to do that? E.g if my DD2 doesn't respond in the same way as DD1 then surely I will have to react differently to her tantrums ? Not a lovely idea, just a practical thing I'd have thought?

no one has really said what to replace it with? I have 6 year old diagnosed adhd (milder end), 4 year old who is exhibiting possible adhd behaviours but with lots more aggression - biting, hitting for no reason ect and a 2 year old who copies. I start with time outs in bedroom and still use it for 2 year old as there is no confrontation and honestly at times I have been so angry that iv had to place child in their room so I can calm down too without them being able to further hurt their brothers or me.

Frankly I'm glad more parents are using this technique and there have been programmes like super nanny that encourage parents to step away from smacking as a form of discipline - it's given parents who would have smacked an alternative.

I'm a fan of 1,2,3 magic. Most techniques are worth a whirl rather than parents falling back to smacking.

we don't do the explaining bit. they get a warning if mild naughtiness then straight to their room if carried in on or automatic time out for aggressive behaviour. They know exactly why they are there as i remove and put in room straight away. I don't need a sorry or tell them when they come out of time out. I tell them their time is up and then give them a hug and tell them I love them.

I don't call it the naughty step but I use it and it has always worked well.

Better than hitting him screaming at him or making empty threats.

He always gets asked at the end why he got put in time out, he explains, apologises, we hug kiss and tell each other we love each other and move on with our day.

His behaviour is impeccable and I rarely need to use it now so I am clearly doing something right

It worked on all 3 of ours and in fact the older grown ups were just referring to it yesterday when dc1 visited.
You do what you feel right about as a parent, for me it was teaching discipline first. Then if they purposely misbehaved, they sat on the step.
We didn't bother with different times for ages though, it was until we thought they were ready to apologise.

SliceOfLime I wasn't suggesting you have to treat children in an identical manner - that clearly wouldn't work but I think it's unrealistic to think you can dish out very different punishment if siblings are close in age.

Keestrel where did I say nobody does this? I said it doesn't work and it isn't practical. Doesn't stop people thinking it's a method and trying it.

Perhaps it was also advocated as a method 20 years ago but I don't think so. I was not a parent then and not aware of any parenting literature but I have read books published at that time (e.g. How To Talk So Kids Will Listen...) which do advocate more of a reasoning than punishment approach, but it was NEVER "drop everything and explain for hours on end totally above child's developmental capacity to understand". If you can find me any source which recommended this (and there is limited stuff on the net from 1995, or amazon book previews etc) then I'll be extremely surprised.

I think it's more likely that the idea of actually talking to children in order to change their behaviour was gaining popularity in the 80s and 90s, in contrast to more harsh methods which were common at the time, but some people who were against it misrepresented or deliberately misunderstood it as this idea of ONLY talking, which it never was. There probably were articles which talked about this, but I suspect they were negative ones.

And plus remember a lot of this was coming out of the US where the culture is more puritan and the idea of discipline is much more structured anyway. So it probably sounds more extreme and crazy to British parents who probably already have a baseline of telling/explaining/discouraging/preventing something first rather than jumping straight to punishment for really minor offences.

I found it great for a time, but dc change so much and so quickly you have to keep up.

The naughty step was great at gently removing child from situation, for a few moments!

then we moved onto reward and other stuff.