to think DH is rewarding the DCs poor behaviour?

[Busybecca]

Following on from my thread about DH babying our DC and allowing them to be rude and dictate to him, we've been talking about our different approaches to try and find some middle ground. Another aspect of parenting we have different views on is reactions to bad behaviour/not listening/not getting their own way.

Tonight DDs (3 and 4) were playing with the water table. DD (3) had a pot of water and went down to the washing line and deliberately tipped it on the washing. I went out and asked her not to, explaining that I wanted it to get dry - not even more wet. A few minutes later, she did it again. I returned and warned her that if she refused to listen and did it one more time then I'd remove her pots altogether. She did it again, I removed her pots. She cried and screamed for a bit and I reiterated what I'd asked her not to do, how she hadn't listened and that I'd explained and followed through with the consequence.

If DH had been in this situation, he would have moved the washing to prevent having to ask DD to stop. If I had been there and told him I needed the washing dry and to leave it out then he'd have asked DD to stop at least ten times before removing the pots. He would then carry her off to do something else to cheer her up, giving her his full attention while ignoring her sister who was being well behaved.

IMO he's rewarding poor behaviour with attention and alternative activities and I think they won't learn unless they have a chance to feel the consequences of their actions. The other day, DD (4) kept poking DD (3) in the ear while she was drawing and rather than tell her to stop, DH carried her off and gave her her weekend magazine she receives if she's been good He thinks this is distraction and works as it stops tears and fall out. I think sometimes there needs to be tears and fall out and that conflict can't always be avoided to keep the peace. He thinks I'm being harsh on them and I'm struggling to see a middle ground because he absolutely believes he isn't rewarding them.

What do you think?

mrsterrypratchett Largely agree with everything you've said.

I believe Milgram's experiments have been largely discredited though.

Can you suggest that your DP does "distraction" differently so that it is not the same reward. Not new magazines or toys, or ice cream or sweets.
Perhaps playing with an existing toy, or give pencils and paper to draw with, or start a conversation on a completely different theme "We're visiting Granny next week, what do you want to do?"

Modern milgram

www.nature.com/news/modern-milgram-experiment-sheds-light-on-power-of-authority-1.19408

Every day is a school day on MN!

Giving kids consequences is no more migrim style conformity studies as opting for a less structured environment will cause Lord of the Flies.

There's a middle ground.
Sanctions are totally reasonable.

Has a single person on the thread suggested no consequences? Some do seem to favour obedience though.

You actually relay incidents to your husband to ask what he would have done in order to confirm that you have different attitudes to the children's behaviour!
Yes, hard work. You, that is.

I would suggest you do some parenting classes together

I don't understand why you would let her do it three times before taking action to stop it happening.

I agree with some middle ground. An unsupervised 3 and 4 year old waiting for their tea with water and washing is probably asking for trouble. By ignoring you and soaking the washing again, (while looking to you for a reaction) what she really wants is your attention.

Maybe choose activities that don't offer so much option for a problem while you're distracted and busy.

Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with asking her to stop and explaining why. But then leaving her with the water and washing was probably asking for trouble if she can see it's getting your attention. Maybe just put either the water or the washing away immediately in future, or go for the soaking the fence/watering the plants distraction.

Your dh distracting your children is a fair option, except that he needs to do it straight away rather than after a lot of saying no. That way it's not a reward, just a suggestion of a better activity.

MrsTerryPratchett, really thoughtful response to my post, for which I applaud you. I do think we need to rebuke children for defiant behaviour, but know that littlies need it doing gently, so they become accustomed to doing the "right" thing automatically. I haven't trained my dog hard to do obedience for shows, but when we are on a road and I call her for traffic reasons, she comes backs and does as asked, so we are all safe.

I also think that lessons in complying with sensible instruction, like "do not wet the washing" are easier to learn at 3 than later, especially if the reasons are explained.

@OCSockOrphanage cheers!

Rather than rebuking for defiance, I prefer to think of it as teaching impulse control! Good impulse control is a very valuable skill. Thinking about it like that informs how we do it. I think that helps.

BTW before I had children, I was very into the idea of obedience and 'good behaviour'. DD has taught me a lot about raising a child.

The washing was about ten metres away so there it wasn't foreseeable that it might get wet. I wasn't setting them up to fail!

@Busybecca of course you want your DH to be all wrong and you all right. But it would be much easier and more beneficial to move closer to each other.

In our house, of course DH is coincidentally always wrong

What do you think about parenting classes, OP? Would they help? Or even some counselling where you could both talk about your different styles of parenting? You sound so far apart, and the children are going to pick up on that tension. What do you think would make things better?

I did parenting classes as we had a really horrific toddler who reacted really badly to the type of disciplining described here, and we were at our wit's end trying to manage him. He had fairly significant speech delay which was a big factor in his behaviour.

You haven't described anything like the kind of behaviour we were getting btw!

One of the tools was to praise praise praise when they were doing what you wanted, EVEN if it wasn't something you thought should be expected or done as a matter of course. Eg holding your hand, sitting quietly while you talk to Daddy, or here, ignoring your washing!

Another very useful tool, was to phrase instructions in terms of what you wanted done , so rather than say stop jumping around , you say, please sit still . Apparently kids find that easier to understand.

Both of those worked incredibly well for us.

A final one was to look at what was going on and to decide was this something important that you had to respond to. So say, holding hands on the street yes. Washing on the line would be a no from me tbh, but everyone has their own lines in the sand.

My dh didn't do the course which I was v cross about at the time (I did it privately as we were so worried, but we also got a free place through the health service here - Ireland); however he does defer to me now mostly in terms of how we discipline. Bit tiresome being the oracle on it, but at least it is consistent.

It was the Incredible Years course btw. There is a book, but it is very dense and not sure you could implement it without having gone through a course on it. A lot of it was quite counter intuitive, at least for me. It also focused quite a bit on how you were reacting to the child and how that was impacting on the behaviour. Spiraling off each other etc. That is harder to explain here but was definitely also a factor for us, our expectations were too high and we reacted too much to transgressions. It also dealt with clashes in parenting styles which you do have a bit.

So, for me, you don't have to go down a road of calling your very small children defiant (which is a bit negative and can be anxiety creating for yourself) and worrying your husband is ruining them by using a distracting method. That is also a valid method for children your ages. I still use it on mine - 6y and 8y now and they are not apparently ruined yet!

When I read about these dilemmas I always find myself reverting back to some version of "what would my mother have done in the 60s". Because my mother, in the 60s, knew how to get results, she knew how to get her little flock of 4 children of widely varying personalities to behave well enough for her to take them anywhere, from formal dinners to long train journeys in foreign countries. She was not a great one for using phrases like "testing boundaries" or "wilful" or "naughty" but she did expect to get results. She rarely used punishments because she rarely had to, not because we were exceptionally good children, but because she had authority.

What she would have done in the present instance is probably:

first gone with a variant of what Bizzy suggested "asked her to water the plants, water on a paint brush to paint the shed"

if that did not work, then given one warning

then removed paint pot and ignored reaction

so not 100 miles from what you did, OP, but perhaps a little more inventive at the start

and perhaps a little less defensive at the end

I should add that I never quite managed to live up to my mother's standards of calm and competent parenting...

It's completely acceptable for the children to learn that actions have consequences. The 4yo will be going to school soon. The teacher won't move things out the way so they can do as they please.

Some common sense