Punishing naughty behaviour by ignoring child - mean or not?

[mammabelleboo]

This has been gnawing at me all evening and is something I have always questionned....if I can set the scene...(bit long, sorry!)

Today invited a friend with her 18mo dd to play in the garden with my dd who is 2.8. She waited all day for friend to come & seemed to be looking forward to it but the afternoon was a total nightmare. She would not share her things nicely and cried, often hysterically, when dd's friend was playing with something complaining that she wanted it and it was hers. When friend's dd fininshed with the toy she wanted so she could play with it, my dd then cried hysterically for the toy the other little one had moved on to...and so it went on for most of the afternoon. So what was meant to be a pleasant afternoon in the sun with the paddling pool and toys to keep the dds occupied so the mummys could chat turned into something decidedly less fun! And to top it all, she shoved friend's dd and threw a dolly dress in her face - she really let me down .

As a result I was well p'd off with dd & when friend went, told her off and proceeded to ignore her - as I've seen advised many times. She was following me round, arms out to me, crying her eyes out for attention, but I stood my ground and carried on what I was doing and ingoring her. She was getting more hysterical and I caved in and scooped her up when she threw herself at me around my legs and declared 'Mummy, I loves you'. Then I felt really mean for ignoring her as to her it must have looked like I didn't care she was getting in a state...God, being a Mum is so hard. Is it right to ignore, or should bad behaviour be forgotten about after the event - should I have ignored her in the garden..but not possible as she needed telling off and I would have had to have ignored her all afternoon as she was being continually naughty. How do you deal with your little ones in these testing circumstances. Feel a really crap mum tonight!

Don't ignore your child....ignore the behaviour.

Ignoring her after the event when your friends have left is meaningless to a two yr old and she wouldn't relate it to her behaviour earlier.

Ideally ignore bad behaviour at the time, intervene early to stop arguments, and distract as much as possible.

I'd remove her from the area for a short time for hitting/hurting another child, and ignore/distract for everything else.

I agree with Jas. She is too young to relate you ignoring her to her behaviour earlier.

Oh God, have really missed the point here, haven't I!!...ignore the BEHAVIOUR! Whoops! Now I feel even worse.......but am glad I've now got it straight...it always did bother me that it didn't seem the right thing to do!

I will find it hard to ignore naughtiness as it is in my nature to plough in with telling her off and trying to put her back on track with her behaviour. But trying to reason with a 2.8 yo is not easy at all, is it? I really felt useless this afternoon as I couldn't stop her bad behaviour, I felt sooo embarrassed as my friend's dd is always so well behaved and on the odd occasion she does have a paddy friend stays calm, collected, never shouts and diffuses the situation so effortlessly ...will try the right sort of ignoring next time it happens and just steel myself for a bumpy ride!! Thanks!

Oh the heat has turned them all into monsters!!

My advice would be to think about what you want them to learn... so you might say 'no dd, othergirl was playing with that toy' and make her give it back and 'ignore' the crying- as you are trying to teach her that it is not acceptable to take things. Or say 'if you hit othergirl again i will move you away from her' and ditto, ignore crying. You don't have to ignore her for long though. You are not trying to 'punish' her, more teaching her that actions have consequences.

Definitely go for distraction, positive praising and trying to avoid the situations in the first instance.

IMO it is all an experiment - I feel like I have a few strategies up my sleeve as I am a teacher but there is a lot of trial and error being a mum (and it's always harder to 'get it wrong' in public/with other children). So don't worry - we learn from what didn't work as much as what does.

Don't be too hard on yourself mammabelleboo, she is very young and learning to share is difficult. It was hot and she may well have been tired. I think Umlellala is right and it is all an experiment, you have to find out what works for you. If she finds it difficult when a DC wants 'her' toy I would find something a bit different to start them off. For example with the paddling pool I would put a variety of containers with some of them being duplicates, e.g plastic bottles and yoghurt pots and then they can't argue. If they start off both playing at the same thing they may happily move into playing with toys.

I agree, some useful advice here. Top bit is not to be too hard on yourself. Your instincts were right after all!

I did this recently, went to a new playgroup and my 2 next week year old started creating because another little girl had a comforter like hers...i dont give comforter in the day she only EVER has him at night time when sleeping, so to say i wasnt impressed at the tantrums that followed was an understatement. I totally ignored the behaviour of her because giving her attention would have achieved nothing, i had no comforter to give her and she doesnt get it in the day anyways...after 10 minutes of stropping she got over it and that was that. I dont think it did her any harm myself and once she stopped the behaviour i didnt like i told her that i hadnt liked it but that it was okay now and sat her on my knee for a cuddle.

the other thing is that we tend to get really upset when our own children behave but very few of us remember how we react when other peoples kids are playing up which is
a) thank god it is their child not mine for once and
b) that child is just overexcited/hot/tired/young etc etc

Very few of us see toddlers or young children misbehaving and are judgemental because we know that most kids on any given day can do exactly the same.

Your friend probably thought nothing of it so try not to feel upset or embaressed as it will never help and sometimes just ramps up the tension with an already strung out child.

You are doing fine

100% with you pagwatch!

Perhaps expecting to have a lovely adult chat with two toddlers around was a bit over-optimistic!! And to expect them to play nicely. In my experience, toddlers just don't understand sharing or taking turns. There could be ten identical toys available, and one child will always want the one the other child is playing with. In this case, I would try to distract the upset child by making another toy seem more desirable "look, this can do such and such" You could offer a choice, " X is playing with that just now, you can play with something else, or you can sit by my chair and not play with anything at all for a little while" (2 mins) in which case you only ignore for the 2 mins.

Sadly for the adults, their chat will be disrupted by supervising the play for much of the time. Of course every child has their moment when we wish they would behave, but in this instance, the DD is still very young.

Thanks so much for all your advice - I know I can be a bit hard on myself sometimes, dh is always telling me to give myself a break!! I can see the sense in all the advice here and am going to do my utmost to follow it as I am aware that I am not dealing with her naughtiness effectively enough . I am a bit shouty just from the sheer frustration of not knowing how to deal with it really, and want to be a more calm, measured mummy...these tactics should help! And you are right, I'm sure none of my friends are sitting in judgement, if they are, then they aren't true friends anyway!! Thanks again all. x.

My DD1 is 2.7 and this sounds so familiar. It's not just that DD1 wants the toy the other child is playing with, it's that she doesn't want other child to touch ANY of her toys! Also rather than snatch the toy away or cry, she just makes an incredibly loud roaring sound at the other child which makes everyone else in the room go quiet and stare

I say "no, X is playing with that" and then ignore her bad reaction. It can really make a social afternoon hard work though.

Sometimes I put some of the toys I know will be most 'fought over' away before other child arrives. And sometimes DD asks me to put something away (e.g. her fave doll) so other child can't play with it. Seems to help a bit.