Naughty Step

[nelliesmum]

Spent about twenty minutes this morning holding my 2.5 year old onto naughty step. She ended up hysterical, I felt bl**dy awful, but can't just let her wander off can I? (She'd thumped her older sister in the face)

tbh this is why I stopped using the naughty step.

Too physical, too much in your face hostility (from child and parent) far too much attention being given to child you are disciplining (and none to the hurt party).

I use(d) time out in bed room with door held shut, and attention to aggrived party on the other side.

Nope, if my DD gets placed on naughty step, each time she gets up before shes allowed she gets put back each time after the 3rd time she learnt lol

Doesn't work with all chn. May not suit your dd.

I have a horrible feeling naughty step/time out will be seen as more damaging than smacking by the next generation of parents. Giving the impression that they're so horrible you can't bear to be near them etc. No idea what the alternative is though and I certainly don't want to smack.

I use "thinking time" (but my DS's are 4 & 7). They have to be quiet, usually in the same room, and think about what they've done wrong. When they're ready, they have to explain what was wrong, how they could have dealt with it better and apologise as appropriate. They only get sent from the room if they need to calm down or are still arguing/not being quiet. I don't have to use it very often, as they really hate the explaining part. Works well when you're out too.

It's all a bit blurry, but I think when they were 2/3, they just had to be quiet for a minute or two and then say sorry, but they always had to say what they were sorry for. i.e I'm sorry I hit X, not just "sorry".

I'm not sure I don't agree with perpetual worrier but I won't smack her and she just laughed when I told her to say sorry. She's a bit young to get the concept of sitting and thinking so its a matter of "something unpleasant happening if you are naughty". Don't really know what else to do. Problem is she gets so upset that I do feel that the punishment far outweighs any crime she actually commits. But I can't let her get away with stuff, that way lies madness..

Thinking step (as I call it!) didn't work for my ds either (he's nearly 3). We tried it for a while, but we ended up ferrying him back onto it for over an hour once and just thought it wasn't working at all. It was making him really hysterical to the point where neither of us could remember what he'd done wrong int he first place! So we diteched it, and now use consequences as a way of punishing. EG if he hits his little brother, he has to say sorry or his favourite toy gets taken away/no favourite telly programme etc etc. THis is working a lot better for us and seems to suit his temperament (he's a feisty one!)a lot better.

I don't think you always have to punish. I remember my brother hit me once with a wooden spoon or some such, and my mum just spoke to him about how it had hurt me, and what did he think he ought to do? He decided to go and put the wooden spoon in the kitchen so he couldn't do it again!

Obviously if hitting is an on-going problem of course you need to tackle it but I don't think kids always need punishing. 2.5 yr olds usually do things on the spur of the moment, unthinkingly and can't yet really have the social skills to think through well enough about the other person's feelings, WHY we don't do this stuff.

I think talking can be enough sometimes and asking the child what they think they ought to do to make things better is a really good way of helping them LEARN rather than just be punished.

FWIW I never used naughty step, but on a very, very few occasions when ds was past all the talking in the world, I did as slubber says and gave him a few mins in his room with the door shut.

I'm with HG, I go for the tactic of having a little chat and explaining to them why they shouldn't do certain things, then make them repeat back to me and apologise. It bores them into behaving more nicely and also has the same function of a punctuation to whatever the situation was.

DH did try the naughty step concept with ds when he was smaller, but he thought it was a great laugh and would go and sit on it and say "i naughty" with a cheeky grin, glamorised the bad behaviour a bit imo.

nelliesmum, just wanted to add a few more thoughts.

This thread (quite a long one) is worth a read. It is talking about disciplining a 5 year old (different to a 2 year old), but the posts towards the end (esp by F&Z) are worth considering.

I use the door holding technique, but what I should have said in my post on this thread, is that I use it quite rarely.

I think it is quite easy to fall into a system of default punishment routines (ie naughty step), you think this is what you have to do, because child care experts say this is what you have to do, and you perhaps stop using the problem solving part of your brain.

Door holding, naughty step techniques are useful, but imo should be used rarely and along side loads of other things you can do to stop things deteriorating into red faced shouty melt downs.

How to Talk so Kids will Listen, and Listen so Kids will talk, is a good book to read. Although most of the tips in there are for using with older children, the concept is still good (and quite radical) that you do not need to resort to threats and punishments the whole time. Often rephrasing a request can diffuse a situation entirely, without the need to resort to a win-loose situation.

And as HG and mazzystar have said, often just a quiet chat is considerably more powerful than resorting to the step or door.