Threatening kids

[mediocremumatherbest]

I just threatened my kids that if they didn't get to sleep and not mess about tonight (they share a room) I'll make them sleep outside in the cold. Wouldn't dream of it. Who else does this?

I rarely threaten anything seriously that I don't intend to carry through.

However I do say things like that to diffuse situations getting out of hand. You know when they're getting silly and just need to calm down. They know I don't mean it, but then I can call upstairs at the next sound of noise, "which of you wants to sleep outside?" and it in a strange way helps.

Although things like that also can backfire by the children appearing down with sleeping bag and pillow and saying "yes please!"

I do this but only really obviously as a dry joke. Like offering to chop off the poorly finger...

I only threaten things I can and will follow through with. Learnt the hard way once and threw a whole cake in the bin.
Your children won't respect you if you keep doing things like that.