To hate the whole 'Naughty Chair' method

[TheLeftFelanji]

My friend uses this for her child (4). It just doesn't seem to work and the whole thing is so chaotic! She calls him 'naughty' ALL the time and drags him and threatens him all day. Do you want to sit on the Naughty Chair????!!! Ok, THAT'S IT!!! get on the Naughty chair!!!!!!

I am starting to feel really tense before I go round, it's a battleground. Can someone please explain if this works and how it's supposed to work and if you use this method? ....without me reading having to read a ton of toddler handbooks.

Much appreciated xx

At the nursery I worked at -I had a 'thinking' chair,right in the middle of the class so they child that had 'displayed undersirable behaviour' would sit on it and watch everyone else play and think about what had gone on,if they were too young for this I would sit on the chair-holding them and calm them down and then watch the other children with them to see who theyd like to join in with now they felt better.

At my house however with 3 ds .....I do a standing at the door with hands on your head - last time I did it ds1 who was about 14 said this is so shameful mum please just send me to my room or take the xbox of me ....hell id even pay you not to make me stand at the door .....

Its a very hard concept for an under 7 to learn this whole 'action and consequence' thing.

Therefor you do need constant reminding before the event as opposed to a punishment after.

not sure I always remembered that when my dc were small .

That makes no sense, runny. Are you saying that anything that needs to be learned through interaction is unnatural? Like learning to talk, perhaps?

Plenty of people here have said exactly how they use the naughty chair.

You have no idea what I'm qualified for.

Next!

At this precise second DS1 is in time out for being rude to me for the last 25 minutes.Those of you who use this method regularly HOW do you make them stay there and not call in younger siblings who are too young to understand the older one is in trouble??

and is there a large tube of super glue i can use to keep him in there?

this is a genuine question.

I know you're not qualified to tell me how to parent my child, or how my methods will affect him. Not in the slightest.

Really? You can prove I'm not Dr CarmenSanDiego Freud, Psychologist Extraordinaire and Part Time Supernanny?

Oh. No. You just know better than all those 'so called experts.'

Good. Carry on.

BTW, I haven't actually told you how to parent your child at any point, or commented on how your methods will affect him. I have made a generalised comment that there are more sound methods than the naughty chair. But you've chosen to go off on a personal attack at me rather than debate the actual methods.

CarmenSanDiego-
when my DC's were younger, i used my Naughty corner as a last result. If one of the,m was doing something wrong, i would ask them to please stop doing that and tell them why its wrong-
ie-stop poking the dog because it will annoy him and he will nip you.
and then, i ask them if they understood and ask them to repeat it back to me to make sure. because then, they have no excuse, the understand WHY they shouldnt. [obviously when they were 2 year olds this had to be repeated a few different times]
and then if they didnt stop harassing the dog, off to the corner they would go.

incidently, actually being nipped by the dog [both DC's]
was the most effective treatment for them to understand he is an animal and cannot communicate effectively that you are peeing him off to warn you before instinct kicks in.
never poked him again, and kids and dog lived in harmony from then on.

BritFish, I pretty much agree with you here, actually.

I probably wouldn't be too keen on actually letting the dog nip the children for obvious H+S grounds but the principle is pretty sound.

Maybe also it showed your children you spoke the truth so they listened to you a bit harder post-nipping

We use the ever effective "Go to your room and come back when you can be human".

He slammed the door the other day which cracked me up, I thought I had another 4 years or so before that.

It works, the annoying behaviour stops which is my objective.

We have the step where they go for time out. It started more with ds1 who really does need time out to calm down but also works to stop them having fun for a few minutes.
I just tell them to go to the step. Are my kids going to be bitter adults about 'the step'?

They will probably need therapy and everything bronze.

I'll look out for dd on mn in years to come.

I actually deal with each of my children differently. After all they are different people.

With my eldest she used to be put out in the hallway for time out she had one hell of a temper shes now 18 and placid as they come my son it never worked for because of his sn my youngest never needed it she was so good.

all punishment is humiliating. A quiet talking to can be every bit as humiliating as a smack, or time out. The point is the child thinks 'that was wrong, i'll do right next time' - this kind of realisation is unpleasant. Obviously smaller kids don't think of it in that fashion, more they want to avoid being excluded from play, and avoid displeasing Mummy.

i believe in whatever works for you. 'time out' or whatever you want to call it works for me. DD has time out - but comes back in, kises the offended party, and gets on with playing. The OPs friend doesn't seem to be on top of things - frankly that's a crap situation regardless of method. One deserving of sympathy - i doubt she can feel good about it.

It never occurred to me at any point in my childhood that my parents didn't love me even when they were angry, sent me to my room, or smacked me. Or even when i got no pudding (the very worst of punishments).

Why do people deny what supernanny does is effective? it certainly seems to be - and the families that do the show always seem in need of some kind of help.

We call it the 'thinking spot'

1 min for every year of your life. dd(4) and ds1 use it and it works. Even at 7 with ds1. It gives him time to think over what happened and why I'm sad about the behaviour. It gives them time to calm down.

I only use it when I've given a warning and I feel the behaviour needs this.

Theladyevenstar..... dd and ds1 have pretty much always stayed there. But if they didn't, I'd put them straight back and start the time from when they stayed there. I use a timer on the fridge. I've always told the other children, siblings or friends, 'were not talking to xyz for a few minutes he's thinking about his behaviour' if they spoke to him or went over etc. Never spoke to the child 'doing the time ' though. !

But when the time is up, I go over, down to their level, well I sit down actually. Ask them if they know why they are there, then get them to say sorry etc. And then a hug etc !!

I think you misunderstood my post, I was saying that that is how it is supposed to work. Pretty much like my parents and your parents (probably) used to say "If you do that again you will get a smack" - I was trying to point out that it comes from the same place, a very formulaic method of discipline which is:

Child does something bad
Parent implements something unpleasant for child
Child learns to associate unpleasant thing with bad action
Child is discouraged from doing bad thing.

Which is fine, in theory, and it works, to some extent, but you can't only rely on this. That is what I was trying to say.

A lot of people think that "discipline" means "punishment" - it doesn't, it means "to teach". Someone in the park saying "Darling, shall we go home now? I really think it's time that we should go home. Oh, are you sad?" while her child is kicking and punching her is not practicing very effective discipline, but effective discipline doesn't have to involve punishment very often or even at all (sometimes depending on the child) - and pure punishment has its downsides. There are arguments that it is a distraction from the behaviour you are trying to change, because it causes resentment. For example I clearly remember sitting in my room feeling angry at my mum for putting me in there when I had been fighting with my sister, because she had started it, of course I know now that it's not right to hurt someone whether they hit you first or not, but at the time it just felt unfair, and I doubt it stopped me hitting her back the next time.

EdgarAllenPoe I think people don't like to admit that parenting styles other than their own are effective, regardless of what your parenting style might actually be.

By admitting that something completely different to what you do works then you are kind of admitting that your way may not be the best way and that you might therefore be doing it wrong. When really I think if you avoid either of the extremes (i.e. smothering/neglect) most kids will be just fine and we all overthink things waaaay too much now.

Nobody likes to be wrong.

"thinking" spot/chair sounds much better.

The thread is in AIBU so it's perfectly R of people to post why they don't like the concept, or do like it. You can't then get all wound-up that people are disagreeing with your parenting methods if you are posting on this thread.

Personally I don't like it especially for very small children, I think they are actually too little to do this reflective process it's supposed to be about. And I suspect older ones quite often sit there feeling resentful but know what to do to get off it again. Which I guess does include stopping the behaviour on that occasion so maybe it works in that context. But I'm not keen.

However DS is only 19m so I can't judge the methods of parenting older children yet. I just happen to be hippy-dippy UP type at the moment, and it seems to be working for us so far.

I don't like it especially for very small children, I think they are actually too little to do this reflective process it's supposed to be about.

erm..but - for one thing it stops them, if your toddler hits you, some kind of action must be taken, and time out in a safe place where they can't injure themselves is a very effective way of dealing with it. (one of many possible ways) and even though i doubt anything complex is going on in the little head 'this is boring, i don't want to be here' is enough to disencourage the behaviour. Toddlers are also easily distracted, so it kind of 're-sets' them.

if the baby is repeatedly performing the same annoying/dangerous action, they get penned too - not really a punishment, more just a way of stopping them.

the concept of reasoning with such a small child i find laughable, on the other hand.

but then if someone says it works for them, who would i be to call them a liar?

now i will also wholly agree with anyone who says it is better to manage-out bad behaviour, but there is a limit to how much you can do that (my big thing is walks - increasingly angsty behaviour = walkies! crap when its raining though..).

tinierclanger "I just happen to be hippy-dippy UP type at the moment, and it seems to be working for us so far." ME TOO My family help though and my dh is very hands on, which I think has made the biggest difference.

CarmenSanDiego It is all very well to try and explain or reason with a child who is capable of that but when you have a three year old with limited speech and understanding or who repeats back at you what you have just said without understanding it and is just not capable of undeerstanding a conversation or longer term consequenses the naughty step by any name is the best way to control what COULD be dangerous behaviour.
My son is always trying to jump off the top of the stairs do I let him? explain to him for the hundreth time that he could seriously hurt himself or do I punish him in the only way he understands and at the same time have a minute or two to catch my breath before getting upset that yes at nearly 4 he still doesnt get it.
I am the only person I know who has danger stickers on the front door stairs fridge etc because he just cant seem to get he cant touch them!

I am not a great fan of punishments, but I have to admit that if I talked to dd of consequences during her difficult years, her response was always some variation of, "well, I don't care, I hate you, I want you to get upset, it doesn't matter if you don't love me because I don't love you". Not because dd was a psychopath with attachment issues, simply because she was a headstrong child who used to get very, very angry.

When somebody is almost strangling themselves in the effort to get at you and sink their teeth into you, it is hardly the moment to say, "well if you behave like this, people are going to feel less positively towards you". Well yeah, that was kind of the aim of the exercise.

I found time out did help, as EggyAllen says, to reset her mind. Punishments, as in withdrawing privileges, only worked rarely, and behaviour charts not at all. Children are all different, I suppose. But to us, what worked was put a stop to undesirable behaviour instantly and then move on.