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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

Naughty Girls School

95 replies

typhoonsmum · 01/05/2007 21:46

Am the mother of a 4 and a half year old who is using her new found indepedence to the upmost.
Have tried the naughty step and other modern day punishments but she just laughs at them. Would call in Supernanny if I knew how but I think she is too much for even her.
A few days ago I remembered the punishment/threat my mum used on me.
THE NAUGHTY GIRLS SCHOOL
It worked for me. My mum even made me speak to the headmistress( my aunty but at the time I didn't know that) and pointed out a big building and said that was the school. I believed her for years.
I tried it the other day and it was fantastic. She was a little angel. She didn't want to go to the school as she'd miss me. ( I was so choked up)
This evening after two hours of telling to go to bed and stop banging about/raiding the fridge/changing into Snow White dresses I told her I'd phoned the school. She didn't believe me. (Every time I've "phoned" I said there was no answer) Tonight I phoned and pretended I got thru. She screamed and cried and went to bed. She was asleep two minutes later.
The thing is I feel so guilty scaring my daughter into behaving. The NGS did me no harm but I feel awful doing this to her but it is the only thing that seems to work.

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Original poster

typhoonsmum · 02/05/2007 18:38

DD has been attending school of some sort since she was two years old and she is not afraid to go. She loves school and is doing really well. I understand people have differing techniques of discipline and that some are frown upon as not right but you do what you have to do to get the child to behave.
I'll take on board all you opinions but I have tried all your suggestions in the past but they don't work. This was the last ditch attempt to save my sanity and get her to tow the line. My mother never scared me with the NGS just made me realise that I was behaving so badly my mum couldn't cope with me anymore and I had to behave.

OP posts:

themildmanneredjanitor · 02/05/2007 18:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ruddynorah · 02/05/2007 18:44

how very odd. had you already tried santa won't come etc or did you just go for the worst possible thing i child could ever imagine happening to them?

hairymclary · 02/05/2007 18:50

typhoonsmum, when i said about not letting her come downstairs I did not mean you have to install cctv or lock her in her room.

what you need to do is stay at the top of the stairs, or in your room, and keep putting her back to bed every time she comes out.
yes it's tiring, yes it's boring, yes you feel like it'll never work, but it DOES. she needs to know that you won't give in, that you aren't letting her downstairs and that she can't just do what she wants.

I think this is a much better long-term solution than scaring the shit out of her because she thinks you will send her away!

and yes, how you discipline your child is up to you. I'm just saying that in my opinion the NGS is a very bad way to discipline

harpsichordcarrier · 02/05/2007 18:51

yes I think you are right to feel guilty about scaring your daughter into behaving. fear is effective in the short term but imo eats into a loving relationship. actually I don't think that you "do what you have to do to get your children to behave" - smacking children "works" in this respect - for a while at least - but that doesn't make it right.
do what your instincts tell you and stop scaring your child. there are better ways to deal with it than fear. you need to get into control and be the parent

Mud · 02/05/2007 18:58

of for godssake its not such a huge big deal. so she used the time honeoured tradition of an outlandish threat to get her kdi to listen to her. the child isnt going to be scarred. and as for cyring her way to bed, she says she fell asleep in 2 mins.

NoodleStroodle · 02/05/2007 18:58

Typhoonsmum was at her wits end - give her a break. Have none of you ever come out with something you have regretted? Personally I wouldn't use the threat too often. The other key is carrying out the threat - once we threaten we need to occassionally carry out to keep our credibility with DC and I think this one is going to be tricky to carry out. Anyway Typhoonsmum I think your DD will be fine. When the dust has settled try to give some thought to the things that she hold dearest and how the absence of these could get her to behave better. sometime it's easier to think things through when the DC are looking at their most angelic and asleep!

Mud · 02/05/2007 19:00

so going to the naughty girls schol is such a big deal. where did she say she was going to be locked away in this school and never see her parents again? surely this child has experience of school and would just assume it would be lie the school she goes to but for naughty children, and she doens't want to be a naughty child

Mud · 02/05/2007 19:01

hey lok there is a bandwagon ove rthere should we get on it

Mud · 02/05/2007 19:02

but the realisty can be talking to an aunty who pretends to be the head of the naughty girls school so its not that outlandish is it

harpsichordcarrier · 02/05/2007 19:16

the thing is though, I think it's important to listen to your instinct.
if you feel awful doing something, if you feel guilty, then you aren't sure it's the right thing. do something that doesn't make you and your children feel awful and guilty.
I understand a one off, at the end of the tether thing. but if you really want us to say - yes it's fine, keep scaring your dd - nope.

colditz · 02/05/2007 19:32

I feel your pain

I have a four year old too, and a one year old. I too have been pregnant with a small child. I know it is hard, most posters do.

But, at the end of the day, if the threat of being sent away to naughty girl school was something you think is fine and dandy, you wouldn't have posted in the first place. I don't really care how you discipline your child, but it's obviously not as harmless as you are trying to tell yourself (probably because you want to do it because it works!) if it's playing on your mind enough to want to post on the WWW about it.

wulfricsmummy · 02/05/2007 19:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

kitbit · 02/05/2007 19:57

agree that if it is bothering you enough to ask opinions here, it's probably bothering your gut instincts.

My friend tells her 2 year old that if she doesn't behave she will put her outside and some other people will take her away and be her parents and she'd better watch out as they might not be as nice as the ones she has so better behave. I think that is a whole lot worse than your naughty school for the record, but it still makes me incredibly sad when I hear her say it. So much so that I am gently moving away from the friendship, actually.

colditz · 02/05/2007 19:59

Oh fuck off with the snide 'Mumsnet Jury' comments

I am a human being. I'm not sat here with the rest of mumsnet, planning how next to gang up on someone, I read the post and posted my own personal opinion. I have taken to deliberately not reading the thread.

Some people obviously think emotional blackmail is a funny and quaint way of raising a child, well I don't. I think it's fucking horrible. I don't care %what the rest of Mumsnet thinks. Perhaps the negative reactions are little to do with imaginary juries, and more to do with The Naughty Girl's School just being a nasty thing to do!?

harpsichordcarrier · 02/05/2007 20:52

well said colditz

Original poster

typhoonsmum · 02/05/2007 20:52

Oh I am getting bored of this now. I posted as i felt bad she had gone to sleep thinking i was actually going to send her. She was tired. I am her mother and I knew that. She always gets hyperactive when she is tired. She needed a shock to calm her down to sleep. I just felt bad.
I felt worse after reading this that many of you think that I am poisoning my child's mind. If she spoke to the "headmistress" she'd know it was her aunty. She wouldn't be scared.
Thanks to all of you who understood the real issue and not as one of you said "jumped on the bandwagon" There is obviously a right and wrong way to do things on this site and that is not proper discussion. Most of you need to open your minds to other forms of discipline and widen your horizons.

OP posts:

Greensleeves · 02/05/2007 20:54

[hollow laugh] at "open your minds to other forms of discipline"

I think I'll pass on this particular pearl of wisdom, thanks all the same.

harpsichordcarrier · 02/05/2007 20:56

I didn't jump on a bandwagon thanks very much. I have a mind of my own and an opinion of my own.
you seem incredibly defensive tbh.

colditz · 02/05/2007 21:23

You know that what you did was wrong for you, or you would never have bothered posting about it in the first place. Why are you trying to defend it now? It doesn't matter what I think, or HCC thinks, or what Cod thinks, or Aloha, or HunkerMunker, or Franny, or anyone else that springs to mind, it's you who has to deal with your four year old. If you really though you had done the right thing, this thread wouldn't exist.

mankyscotslass · 02/05/2007 21:36

tbh, i sympathise with you being at the end of your tether after a bad few days. Being pregnant wont help I know. My eldest was 3.6, my middler was 22 mths when youngest arrived. It is hard. But no matter how horrible a day has gone past (there have been loads) and even if just before bed, i have to cuddle and kiss the kids and tell them i love them and that although i am sad/cross with what has happened, tomrrow is another day. I just would not be able to go to sleep knowing they were that upset. Or that frightened about what i had said. I am all for discipline and respect, but i can remember someone saying never to go to sleep on a bad note, and i try to do this with the kids. (DH is another matter) You sound like you need more support, is ther anyone who can help out at all? You are obviously upsey about it and questioning it as a tactic or you would not have posted. I hope you and dd find a path that helps soon.

Rachmumoftwo · 02/05/2007 21:59

We have all said or done something we regret to our children I am sure. This is why motherhood is said to be based upon guilt! It's not the end of the world, we should just learn from it and move on. Parenting is a huge learning curve for me and it helps to have this site to discuss things on, but let's help each other, not judge.

babygrand · 02/05/2007 22:05

If it works, I don't see what's wrong with frightening your children into behaving better. I know someone who regularly phoned "social services" to ask to have her children adopted.

colditz · 02/05/2007 22:09

Yes, my mother used to to it, until my dad threatened to leave her if she ever did it again, shortly after I spent all night vomiting in fright (he was on a night shift)

Just because lots of people do something doesn't make it a good thing to do, does it! FGS, lots of people smoke, shall I send your kids a packet of fags?

colditz · 02/05/2007 22:09

Oh, and I was 9, not 4!

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