I'm seriously thinking about more 1950's style parenting. Comments please?

[clumsymum]

We have a very lively, personable, boisterous bright little boy of nearly 7, who is also cheeky to the point of being rude, and VERY controlling.

For the last 3 years we have tried to stick to the Tanya Byron / Christopher Green etc model as regards discipline and behaviour. Praise the good, use reward charts, try to ignore bad behaviour etc.
But as he gets older feel that I'm floundering. The last two weeks of the school term were horrendous as far as his behaviour was concerned, and altho' Mon - Wed was OK-ish, from Thursday teatime, he became a bugger, and yesterday morning he shouted at me, threw things at me, slammed doors in my face, the lot.

So late yesterday morning I slapped his bottom for the first time ever, and he spent 30 minutes locked in his room while I ignored him.
The rest of the day his behaviour was much improved, and right thru' to lunchtime today, when he refused to pick up toys. Another spell locked in his room, and he picked up his toys (after a deal of yelling from inside his bedroom, he wasn't allowed out until he had been quiet for 10 minutes, and agreed to do as he was asked). When the toys had been cleared up, he was hugged and praised for it.

Given how many programmes there are concerned with handling 'kids from hell', and the number of parents at school struggling to discipline their children, I am beginning to think that the 'softly softly' approach has come too far, and that an 'old school approach' to discipline might be called for.

BTW, I'm not suggesting regular beatings with a strap or such, but that reasonable punishment for poor behaviour takes on equal importance to praise for the good.

erm by don;t bite I mean don't let them wind you up, not physically bite

Another fairly reasonable day today. No major kick-offs, despite being disappointed that a friend wasn't available to play.

He stomped round the house at this, and slammed one door, but then immediately apologised, without me even having to ask.

Believe me, this is a huge improvement on the previous few days.

I'm sort of anticipating a major incident to kick off, but hugely amazed it hasn't yet.

Mind you, we went out to a Robin Hood Festival this afternoon, got soaked in a really bad shower (I mean literally soaked to the skin with icy cold rain), and he slept for nearly an hour in the car on the way home, so I suspect that has helped today be less fraught.

Glad to hear you had a good day, keep it up! I was once told in teaching to be fun, firm and fair, set boundaries and carry out your threats - some of the best advice I was ever given. I think you're doing a great job.

Thanks WriggleJiggle, I really appreciate the moral support.

I think there should be middle ground. I don't necessarily agree with all they did in the 50s but I definitely think we've had too much of a softly-softly approach which has led to the deterioration in discipline of our children. Children no longer respect adults, and I think that is largely down to the fact that discipline is almost seen to be unacceptable these days. I shudder to think what kind of children some of the children of today will be raising in 20 years time, given that they were never properly disciplined as children.

clumsymum, well done to hace stick to what you think is the best way to deal with your DS.
I think that all the good behaviour approach, no punishment... approach is a good way for pre-scholler who have little idea of time and can not imagine correctly what will be the consequence of the acts.
A 7yo, that's different. Some people actually advocate using the 'natural consequence approach'. Such as : 'It's cold outside, you don't want to wear a coat. Well it's up to you, you will get cold' and let the child choosing. They might try it once but not twice. It can also work as 'toys left in the living room when going to bed are going in the garage - No more toys'.
Our parenting approach needs to evolve with the age of the child and their temperament. And yes 'reasonable punishment for poor behaviour takes on equal importance to praise for the good'. Carry on!

Have been reading the thread again and |I must a really old fashion mum.
Sorry, but I don't think that been tired is an excuse for bad behaviour. As a child, I was expected to behave within boundaries and wouldn't have expected my mum to 'slackned' the rules just because of that. I think it is the right way to go. How on earth do you want a child to know what is acceptable or not if you change the target all the time? It's like saying : Ok the speed limit is normaly 30 but you are late today so you can go at 40. Doesn't work does it?
If you want a child to follow a rule, state it and keep it.

MB hit it on the head. its the confidence. you know you are the parent you demand obedience for having that status. you have the power and control the universe and everyone is clear about that. no one has to read a guru book to tell them how to parent. no0 one needed a websiute to tell them how to parent.

i have money and love.

money buys things
kids want things
kids want love and attention

ergo i have all the power

SLAM SLAM WALLOP SLAM " I am NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT picking up my TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOys"

"ok"

walk off watch tv.

10 mins later ( if that)

"can i have a butty please?"

" when you have done your room"

" arrhhhrrrrrhhhggghhhhhhhhh i hate you"

"ok!"

10 mins later Mum can i watch xxx on tv later?"
" only if you have done your room!"

"

eventually they will do their room or go hungrey and bored.

if they treat me with disrespect i will not go out of my way to play a game with them. to say nice things to them, to enquire about their day.

becuase guess what? being nice to other people is good manners. and after all i am trying to raise good PEOPLE who will enter society and not be spoiled little fuckers who think the world owes them a living becuase mummy and daddy bought them everything they want.

and as soon as somone says no to them when they are 23 and they dont get a gold effin star - what they gonna do? cry?

It worked on me!

Look how great I turned out!

and a few others on here - you know who you are!

Custy, you should write a book on common sense parenting. I agree with you by the way and I'm 100% behind CM. I can't abide bad manners and behaviour in children and will not put up with it from my own. It really grates me when I see an adult trying to reason with a screaming 2yo who only understand me, me, me. My 2.5yo DTS already know the boundaries and they already know about consequences. I have yet to suffer the hour long demon tantrums that seem to beset so many parents these days because when they start, they are ignored until they calm down. Like someone said earlier, if an adult is screaming at me, I would walk away and ignore them until they calm down. Why then do we waste our energies trying to reason with tantruming children who are too immature to understand reasoning?

Good luck Clumsymum

Custy, I agree with your approach, but ds can get himself into the "cut off his own nose to spite his face" mode, where even if he wants something, he will scream, slam doors and yell that I'm a nasty mummy, rather than just give in and do what is asked.

Unless I want to endure an hour long tirade (or more) then I would have to take stronger action. Hence this new regime.

OOh clumsy mine is 4.5 and I have had a hell day so far. I have done all those approaches suggested in the programmes and spent hours explaining what he did wrong so that he could understand what wasnt acceptable.

Today he walked into a shop grabbed the mannequins norks and said oooh boobaloobies in his best loud voice. I told him off calmly and he told me he wouldnt shut his mouth and promptly smacked my bum!

wtf do you do? I frogmarched him out of the shop to sorry, sorry I wont do it again but I know he will.

Spent 5mins in naughty room when we got home and I am now waiting for the next installment.

All tips on 1950's parenting very welcome cos Im bloody well up for it

I have to say that the image of your ds going "oooh boobaloobies" has me rolling around laughing, but I can understand you being embarrased and cross, esp. when he defied you about being quiet. It's the outright defiance that gets me.

Get good boundaries now. If he doesn't like being in the naughty room, then firmly use it whenever he is badly behaved.

Haven't read the entire thread, but just wanted to mention a book that I have started reading called "1-2-3 Magic". My therapist recommended it when I said I felt at a loss as to how to properly and effectively discipline my extremely lively 3 year old. So far, it seems quite interesting and reasonable as far as establishing your authority without losing your mind

I've just read thru this thread about getting kids settled down to bed, and it's astounding.

I have read the amount of negotiation that goes on (esp Issymum at 5:21 p.m. today). I've done it, we negotiate and weedle to get them to do what we want, and looking back it's the thin end of the wedge.

I'm NOT advocating outright cruelty or neglect as in "walk away and shut the door" no matter what age, but allowing your kids up to 3 chances to get out of bed again, or spending time running thru a checklist of things that need to be done every night, seems like they've got the upper hand. Inwardly this kid is laughing at you because they've specified the end condition of doing what you want. Certainly that is how I'd see it from my ds (having said that, I still put the landing light on when he asks, even tho' it's still light at bedtime these days).

And I'm not saying that, as a parent you are wrong to do it, if you are happy with the compromise. But I guess that 50 years ago very few parents would have compromised to this extent, whereas now it has become 'the norm', and may be part of the reason more of us have problems with our children's behaviour. Because when we say "that's enough" they get away with just one more tiny push across the boundary.

And really I'm not criticising anyone, just observing.

Oh and today's diary entry.

DS was fairly cheeky last night, faffing about instead of teeth cleaning, and blowing raspberries in my face when I told him to get on with it. After 2 verbal warnings that his behaviour was not as it should be, and suggesting that he would not get to the holiday club today if it carried on, I refused to read him a story, and shut him in his room for 10 minutes.
He came out, brushed teeth, moaned cos I wouldn't read to him, but proceeded to bed with no problems.
He got up in a goiod frame of mind this morning. Put away toys when asked, before going to holiday club.

He had a friend round to play all afternoon, and did get giddy and cheeky at one point. However, he was sent to his room for 5 minutes (not locked in), while I read with his friend, then came down and was pretty calm and well behaved.

So it's still working right now.

I am still puzzled as to why you seem to think that parents in the 50s had much better behaved children. Like I posted earlier, Dr.Spock was the big child guru in the 50s and he was hardly Supernanny. You know, I think every generation think previous generations had better behaved children. I understand that you have problems with your child at the moment, but I don't think you do yourself any favours by thinking is because childrearing is too liberal these days. I am sure you'd think I was far too liberal with my children, but then I don't have many problems with their behaviour so it obviously works for me and my children. You have to find something which works for you and your children and not think it's because you live in 2006 as opposed to the 50s. You'd probably have the same struggles in the 50s because you would be the same person raising the same children.

Fairymum, talk to your parents / grandparents and others of their generation about what behaviour was expected and accepted.

Why do soo many teachers have problems with stress/disillusion with their jobs today, which was much less of a problem then? Because children (secondary as much as primary) are less well behaved, less respectful.

I'm not saying that no-one had problems with their children then, but I believe that the problems were less widespread than now.

And yes, as you postilate, I may just be a crap mother. But I'm looking to put that right NOW, before a 6 year-old nuisance becomes a 16 year-old thug!

That's interesting Clumsymum. We see 'The List' and the 'what's going to happen in the evening' reassurance as cutting down negotiation. We set a boundary of what we are willing to do to meet some of the legitimate anxieties and not-so-legitimate requests of a rather sensitive child, we do that and that's it. After that there is no negotiation.

It sort of works both ways. DD1 is comforted by The List etc. but knows that beyond it there is no flexibility.

Didn't the kids of the 1950s turn into the teenagers and young adults of the 1960s and early 1970s? Hmmm....

Issymum,

I quite understand that your child may be more sensitive, and you have found a solution that works for you. Great!

But my son will do this sort of thing just to exert his control, which I am looking to curb in some respects (as he tries to control his teacvhers in class, not healthy). BTW I do allow him control in many areas (what he wears, what packed lunches he has etc), so he doesn't feel completely downtrodden.

I think that when sociologists and the like have really looked into childcare in the 50s etc, (eg patterns of infant care by John and Elizabeth Newson)mostly what has been shown is the discrepency between how parents thought they were meant to parent (i.e authoritarian methods) and how they actually did parent(i.e much more gentle methods, negotation etc).
Tbh I don't really see how you can even begin to compare then with now, far too many differences, particularly with the regard to family size, the freedom that children were afforded then,as well as the responsibilty they had - and dare I say it, the way in which many children were probably more central to their parents lives than they are today.

Pippo

I recognise that things were much different then, which is part of my point. So many children have far less freedom on a day-to-day basis than they had then, partly because we fear so much (more traffic, a perceived increase of 'stranger danger', etc.), and as a result, yes our children are not expected to take so much responsibilty for themselves or each other.

I find the last line of your post highly significant too,

"many children were probably more central to their parents lives than they are today"

personally (dons hard hat to say this), I do not see it as good progress that many of us are sooo tied up in trying to progress our careers, earn more, buy more consumer goods (often cos the kids want them)etc. that nurturing and being with our kids can't be the largest part of a parent's day.

And before you shout me down, I am a graduate who had a very active and busy career before I had ds, but gave it up for the most part, because I saw being with him as my no. 1 priority until he is older (actually dh and I had long discussions about which one would be SAH parent). And I know that SAHMing is hard, lonely, depressing sometimes, becos I went thru' it. But in my heart, I believe that if it can be done, it is probably the best option.

Again, I'm not criticising anyone here, just airing my thoughts.