'You're a naughty girl!', said DP. AIBU?

[Rainatnight]

I don't know if I'm being over sensitive or not. DP and I are having a tricky time at the moment and I don't want to make a big deal out of it if I'm being unreasonable.

DD, 18 months, tried to draw on the newly decorated kitchen wall three times when I was out of the room this morning.

I came into the room to find DP picking her up and saying 'naughty girl!' to her.

I really don't agree with this. I don't think a child that young can be 'naughty', and I think labelling a really little child as naughty for normal toddler behaviour is really unhelpful.

But I'm quite soft and I over think this kind of thing more than DP. It could just be a figure of speech and not something that will scar DD for life!

Thoughts?

I'm a very strong believer in labelling the behaviour, not the child. "That's a bad choice" not "you're a bad boy", or "it's naughty to draw on the wall" not "you're a naughty girl".

Lots of evidence that kids internalise labels.

Children live up and down to our expectations. So yes, I think the distinction between labelling the behaviour and labelling the child is important. If you give someone a label then you aren't expecting them to be able to change. As a one-off it doesn't matter, but this won't be the only time DD does a naughty thing so it's a good time for OP and DP to decide what to do in future.

My DCs' school tends to use the language "making bad choices" which I find a little cringey but there's a solid point there: when you do a bad thing you have chosen to do so, and could have made a different choice.

YABU, it's a figure of speech. It is naughty to draw on walls, this is how she will learn. I had it said to me , I've said it to my girls, we are all unscarred.

You will learn OP that we often say the first thing that comes to us when reacting to a child's behaviour. Yes it would be better if he'd said, "Don't do that, it's naughty, draw on this paper instead." but he was trying to correct his dd in the moment. We all get it wrong all the time, wait until she's a teen!!

'I do ballet and being told booboo your being lazy with your back leg helped me improve a pose. Being told that I am being too needy as a friend helped me improve myself as a friend. You can give someone negative feedback and still be loved and respected by them'

Booboo I think you're still missing the point here. There's a difference between being told to improve a ballet pose and being told you're a lazy person or being told you're being needy as a friend and being told you're a needy person. Do you understand the distinction? One is about your behaviour and provides ways to change it, the other is just labelling you, which is totally unhelpful.

Tell her no, take away crayons and distract her with another toy.

I get the label the behaviour not the child angle, but are there really people who think the word 'naughty' is wrong? [shocked]
Mind boggling.

Wait til your children go to school and come back telling you about all the naughty kids in their class. Or will they tell you about the kids making 'bad choices'?

My children don't tell me about the naughty kids in school and I'd be pretty unimpressed if they did - how awful for a child to be known as a 'naughty kid' - I think most parents would be upset with that. What hope is there for a child if they've already picked up that label and all their peers know it? Would you also be joking about children talking about the 'lazy child' and the 'stupid child'?

You're agreed on the word 'naughty' just not the object. That's fine. It's not for either of you to bring the other parent into line with how you personally parent.

I'm aghast at some of the responses but not at all surprised. I do not like these wanky parenting 'techniques' one bit.

It's not a matter of wanky techniques Lying, it's a matter of not calling children names, which is a pretty basic thing

She was drawing on the wall! YABU

But she was naughty!

The first time she wasn't, the second time perhaps, and the third time, definitely! She was in defiance by that stage ( and yes, at 18 months, absolutely)

Really try not to over think this kind of thing. Calling them naughty won't damage them!

That is a basic tenet of decency anywhere, LeCroissant, see how well that works here perhaps? All these practitioners of no-name-calling...

'Naughty' isn't a word that a child carries with them into adulthood - unless they're talking about calories in a 'naughty' cake. It's seen as almost an affectionate thing, not name-calling at all.

Anything that one parent uses to belittle or demean the other parent (excepting abuse) is wrong.

We all have different methods but to hear the pompous parroting about such a minor thing is risible - not the event itself, the posters parading themselves as any kind of superior parent.

I'll keep my disdain intact for abusive parenting; not this.

It's an affectionate thing? Using affection as discipline is really really odd.

Good Lord. If DP saying "you are a naughty girl" to a child drawing on the walls is such a major issue to create 6 pages on MN there must be very little going on otherwise!
It hardly needs to cause all this angst

LeCroissant I don't see naughty as a particularly, well, 'naughty' word. It's very mild.
And I am not remotely bloody upset with my child for reporting back (at the age of 10) about naughty children in her class who talk back to the teacher or hit each other. .
Why on earth would I be? Upset with my own child for that? Good grief.

This is like a wormhole into the biggest parallel universe of wanky parents ever, and I've been on MN for ten years.

But she was being naughty...she was clearly a naughty girl. You're overthinking. Let your poor DP parent!

In Spanish there are two different verbs for "to be" depending on whether it's a current state or an immutable fact, eg "she is pregnant" v "she is British". I think the difference in English between "you are being x" and "you are x" is kind of similar.

LeCroissant well no, that's not what I meant. I can see what you mean though and it's quite clear that we won't see eye-to-eye on parenting. I'm fine with that. :)

Would you be ok with your child being known as the 'naughty child' Miaow?

I agree with you OP. An 18 month old is curious about the world, not trying to deliberately annoy her parents by graffitiing their house. If she hasn't been told before that you can't just draw wherever you like, how would she know? Ask her not to draw anything else on the wall, then buy a bulk lot of sugar paper.

If she behaved like some of the exceptionally naughty children in my daughter's class, then that would be the absolute least of my problems, LeCroissant. I would expect nothing else.

Honestly. DD comes home and tells me how she sometimes can't work in the classroom because some particular children are so disruptive and rude. So I couldn't care less if they're labelled 'naughty' by a ten year old. Because they actually are naughty (putting it mildly). I'm actually offended you're implying she's in some ways a less than nice child herself because of this...

I like MrsHathaway's point about the state of being as a transient one too.

I like MrsHathaway's point too, it's really balanced and this thread could do with that badly.