To think it's a bit sad to use 'Elf on a shelf' as punishment?

[MoanaofMotunui]

I always though the idea of Elf on a shelf was to have a bit of fun and bring a bit of magic to children before Christmas.

However a neighbour has just told me that, because the children had not been listening yesterday, the Elf has written a letter to the children telling them over and over how 'bad' they've been and that need to work harder otherwise they won't receive any Christmas presents (but that he has been naughty during the night and she has lots of stickers around the house with slogans like 'naughty elf at work')

Neighbour has also sat in-front of the children and eaten their advent calendar chocolates for this morning.

AIBU to think this is a bit sad?

I don’t make a thing of ‘naughty or nice’ but 5 year old DS was hysterical last night over a tiny misdemeanour because he thought ‘santa’ would find out. It has come from friends and Christmas songs for him and a big confusion around God in school assemblies.

My point is, Elf on the Shelf would be miserable for him!

The advent calendar bit is horrible; she could have just said they could have it at the end of the day if they were good

That is horrible but it doesn't surprise me as i have seen people doing similar. I hate EOTS, santa cams etc.

I thought Elf on the Shelf was a film, never heard of folk doing this sort of thing re mean punishing elves. Why not just use your normal discipline techniques in December?

We have EOTS but it's a soft toy girl elf and DD is allowed to play with it and she 'gets up to mischief' each night. Nothing creepy at all and we have told DD the naughty and nice list isn't true, she's comfortable with that so that suits us.

The Santa cam is an awful idea, eating your childrens advent calendars in front of them is quite cruel ☹

We do EOAS but just a bit of fun. Elves brought their advent calendars. Left a note saying we were putting up the decorations. We move them to a different place each night. Have them let the kids know what day we are going to see Santa, do different arts and crafts. We don’t nasty tricks or bad behaviour. We do say to be careful as you don’t want to be on Santa’s naughty list. I don’t think it does any actual harm to reinforce that good behaviour is expected by us and other grown ups. I would never dream of eating their advent calendars in front of them (we have eaten all the selection boxes we picked up two weeks ago on offer and now have to replace haha but the kids didn’t know we had them). My DS was a nightmare yesterday so we used a punishment that we would normal use such as grounded, technology ban, time out. He still got his advent chocolate and was still involved in the advent books and activities of the day. To take those away is cruel.

I hated the idea of EOTS when I heard about it - stool pigeon.

I try and only threaten re Santa on Christmas Eve when they won’t go to bed!

Isn't the point of elf on the shelf that he spies on you and reports back to Santa? Creepy and weird. Same as Santa cam. I'd have been scared thinking I was being watched (Santa was small scale and unconditional in our house).

Those kids will be on the stately homes threads in 20 years time.

Yes! I agree with you all. My DD is too old for this now thank fuck. When I heard about EOTS, my first thought was "oooh nasty" and I haven't changed my mind. As a pp said, if you have to use these tactics to make your DC behave, then you're a shit parent. FC was always a benevolent figure in our house. Let's face it, if you have naughty kids, they are just as naughty in August as they are in December. Try something else. And if they ate generally well behaved there is no need to "threaten" them. Most kids are "naughty" sometimes anyway. Do they not get any pressies? Of course not. Talk about a mixed message.

I don’t do elf (was not a thing when my kids were young) and I don’t eat advent chocs belonging to them.

However it’s so frustrating when kids won’t listen and you work your butt off to do everything you can for them. I can understand why the neighbour has resorted to this. Think you should try empathy instead of judgement. Christmas is a ridiculously excessive fest of consumerism and treats anyway these days. In the absence of abuse, virtually nobody’s kids are going short these days, nearly all of us have a disgusting amount of stuff/choc/treats/experiences.

Neighbour is heartless. How can you eat the chocolates from.the calendar .just spiteful tbh. How about talking nicely to them instead of behaving worse than the naughty behaviour they are complaining about

Elf on the shelf plays no role in survellance in this house. Or indeed any house I know.

However DS was a bit perturbed yesterday with the 'naughty or nice' lists in Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, which he learnt in nursery.