Is this a valid discipline technique?

[shimmerysilverglitter]

Today ds (7) had a massive tantrum. It was pretty bad, screaming, shouting, rudness and so on.

Our dd was in the car too, behaving herself nicely while it was going on. My ex wanted to stop at a shop and buy her a treat to reward her while pointedly NOT getting anything for ds to punish him and show him for how badly behaved he was being.

I wouldn't do it and told him I thought it was a spiteful thing to do to an already distressed child. Best to ignore ds and then when he had calmed down give a sanction then ie not give a book I had ordered from Amazon for him, I would tell him he had to wait a couple of days and show good behaviour to get it.

Cue hissed rant from my idiot ex about how badly brought up our ds is and it is all my fault and I am a lazy parent and so on and not fair on dd to "miss out on a treat", to my mind there didn't need to be a treat at that point just to ram the message home to ds.

So who was right?

Thanks, not just that either I know I would always remember with a burning resentment that kind of punishment. I just don't feel like it was necessary, we did not before we went out say we will stop and get dc a treat and dd was going to miss out because of his bad behaviour, it was purely being done to punish ds by rewarding dd in front of him. Just felt completely off to me.

I can see his point, kind off! I am guilty of often giving attention to the DC behaving badly while ignoring DC behaving well. We try (not always successful) to ignore the bad behaviour and focus on praising the good behaviour.

Don't agree with buying treat for sake of it and think it will spoil one and create resentment in the other.

I do think your dd should have been rewarded for keeping out of the fracas with ds BUT I would have taken her aside privately and unbeknown to ds, and told her what a good girl she had been.

I would not have spent money.

Agree totally about sibling rivalry - bad idea to compare children and point out the differences that way.

You are right, your ex is, indeed, and idiot.

Yes, tbh I do try very hard to acknowledge the good behaviour of the other child, I was very smiley with dd and chatting to her about this and that inbetween dealing with him.

It was the buying the treat just to ram the point home to ds that felt almost spiteful to me iyswim? I don't think anything positive could have come out of it, if anything I think it would have prolonged the tantrum, made him feel even angrier and isolated and made him really resentful of his sister. Best to not buy anyone anything and then deal (sanctions etc) with him when he calmed down I felt, without involving anyone else.

Apparently though, this is "Lazy Parenting".

I think spiteful is the right word. And cruel. And likely to cause sibling rivalry.

Also, ime anyway, punishment metered out when feelings are high (ie mid tantrum) have far less effect than those doled out later, with explanation, when you've had a chance to think things through and work out what's a) appropriate and b) what will actually work!

And buying a present for another child is a stupid punishment for the misbehaving one.

Good, feel vindicated now. I don't even bother to engage with ex half the time but obviously have to where dc are concerned. He seems to want to come down on ds like a ton of bricks. One tantrum and its all "we need to get this sorted", "look at your lazy parenting" and "I have had enough of THIS" as though it is happening 24/7. He also says that if he had ds for a month without my "interference" he could "turn him around", dread to think what that means .

I wanted unbiased opinions regarding doing this kind of thing with any child so didn't mention that ds is ASD in initial post. So this "idea" would have been even worse for ds to cope with it.