"Naughty"

[juneybean]

I've started work at a new nursery and I'm aware of not labelling children but why the total blanket ban on the word nursery, I said it in a general comment to another staff member yesterday and you would have thought I'd called them all a bunch of cunts the look they gave me.

If we're not saying "Don't do that it's naughty" we're saying "don't do that it's not good" if naughty has an effect on a child so does "Not good"

It's ridiculous to have a total ban on a word when we then use other words in it's place.

Counting down to the day I go back to being a nanny!

haha yeah I said soemthing to the headteacher at ds1's school about him being naughty and she looked all horrified and said "yes, well, we don't use that word here"

to which i replied "ok.... but he is!"

Working in a reception class the words "that's not very nice" became a phrase I had to use 20/30 times a day! This was over 3 years ago.

It did seem to work for a while but I left as felt nothing was ever followed up by the teacher/teachers afterwards!

I said "naughty" last week at my DD's childminders, in reference to the "time out mat" she has, I called it the "naughty mat". She chuckled and explained she is not allowed to use the word "naughty", how on earth are children supposed to learn they have done worng ! he does however use it for her own child. Very silly.

I think DD's nursery prefers to describe the behaviour in terms of the effect it has on other people, so that the emphasis is on learning to think about those around you. So they don't say "naughty" but they don't say "not good" or "not very nice" either -- any time I hear a member of staff commenting on behaviour it's in terms of how other people feel.

As professorlayton said really.

To be honest i feel the balnket ban on naughty is a misrepresentation of the idea that its not helpful to label the child but the behaviour. So rather than your a naughty boy, it should be that behaviour was naughty because....(it hurt friend etc). However we don;t use it at our nursery, although on occassions in the right context i have heard it used and i do not have a problem with it.

We don't have a naughty chair or mat, we have a thinking chair where the older children are told asked to sit to think about their behaviour and why it was not kind/nice etc.

I really want to focus my postgrad presentation on the replacement of 'negative' words by negated positives especially in childcare settings as there's research to show people don't always process negation.

'Walk on the pavement' is more effective than 'Don't walk on the road.'

Therefore surely saying 'that was naughty' (not you are naughty etc) is better than saying 'that wasn't nice'. The word naughty has just become so stigmatised it's reaching ridiculous levels. Some behaviours are naughty IMO, in strict accordance with the dictionary definition, and wilfully disobedient and naughty behaviour, especially when a child knows it's wrong, should be identified to them.

I still have to sell this idea to my tutor who think analysing newspapers would be more funny.

It drives me up the wall that nurseries can't use the word naughty. The one DS1 used to go to used 'silly' instead which I only found out when DH asked me what DS1 and I had been up to and I replied that we had been having a silly half hour. DS1 burst into tears and got very upset as he thought he had been really good!

I accept that there is a need to try and be positive with children (most often used word in my house is no!) but if a child is being naughty they need to learn that the behaviour is naughty. We try to be are careful to try and label the behaviour as naughty not DS1 or 2 but sometimes they are just being naughty

Ha. Ridiculous situation, and ridiculous to say "not good". Brains don't process negatives well - tell someone, especially a very small someone that something is not good and they will hear this: "that is (not) good". Hardly the message you want to put across, is it?

When talking to small children, the words Not, No, Don't etc. should be avoided as much as possible because their brains have to process the "thing" first, before they work out the "don't" or "not" - and they might not reach that point, they might just hear the "thing".

Hope that makes sense - but basically, saying that something is "not good" is giving a mixed message - so using the word naughty is FAR MORE SENSIBLE. Blame the behaviour, not the child - as in "doing X is naughty", as opposed to "you are naughty to do X" - but use the correct word to describe the action.

I should add that "No!" as a standalone phrase is perfectly ok and actually, IMO, pretty essential to use with all small children

at the nursery where my dc are they use the word naughty, but they take care only to "label" the behaviour and not the child.

It is a stupid ban because children understand what the word naughty means and so they understand that their behaviour is wrong

Sorry Frakkin, didn't read your post before posting - we said much the same thing! :)

S'alright, thumb. I sound less of a lunatic when people say the same thing.

Calling a child naughty is a big no-no in nurseries. What happens if they believe you? If you're a naughty child you are supposed to paint mummies i-pad and shave the cat because that's the sort of things a naughty child should do. The 'correct' behaviour for a naughty child is naughtiness. The approach nurseries like to take is that children are good but sometimes the things they do are naughty. Some go even further. The one I'm in go on about happy and sad choices.
In my opinion, the word naughty is used so much in our society that banning it totally is a bit pointless.

When DS1 was at nursery, they used the word 'picklish'.

Must admit, I use both naughty and picklish or pickle.

Well that's it, parents use Naughty at home so they know that doing X is a naughty thing to do.

I agree "not good" isn't a great replacement, I just don't understand the difference between naughty and the myriad of other things they use, as someone said earlier "silly" or "that's not nice"

I'd be interested in reading your presentation when you write it Frakkin!

But it's one thing to say 'you are naughty' and another to say 'painting mummy's ipad is naughty'.

There's a big difference between not labelling the child and banning the word entirely.

Well exactly, it's completely considered a swear word and it's ridiculous.

After Wednesday, today I was reading a story and it said X was being naughty and I stopped myself wondering if I'd get into bother reading naughty outloud

Don't think the word should be banned, but I do think that it's probably not that helpful, because it doesn't tell the child why what they're doing is wrong or dangerous or undesirable. I personally think it's better to say "no don't hit that hurts X" or "don't throw things on the floor it makes a mess" etc.

I don't like the word "naughty" - it irritates me, because it's not very descriptive and feels lazy. (I mean is there anything you don't do as an adult just because it's naughty?) But replacing it with something like "not good" or "silly" is ridiculous and misses the point.

If DS does something that others would probably label "naughty" I tell him why it's not allowed, not just that it's naughty. So hitting is "too rough", spitting is "rude", touching hot drinks is "dangerous", other things are asked by turning into a positive statement, like "Pen on the paper please, not the table" and "Walk on the path" or "Be careful"

IMO there's usually a better reason not to do something than just "because it's naughty" and I don't see why you can't explain that reason to a child in an age appropriate way from when they are really little.

Xposted BluTac

Also I don't like the thinking that some people seem to have that if you don't use "naughty" you're a wishy-washy liberal whose children run wild.

But there are some behaviours which are just plain NAUGHTY - when the child knows that they're disobeying or being mischievous and chooses to do it anyway. Spitting is rude, touching hot drinks is dangerous, shaving the cat is....well...naughty.

I suppose it depends on the age of the child. My ds is 2.5 so might not necessarily know that certain things are naughty. Obviously an older child would.

No, shaving a cat is unkind to the cat! It's not "just naughty".

If you use the word naughty for everything, how does a child differentiate between which things are naughty just because parents say so and can be safely done when parents are not around (swearing etc), which things are sort of middling (drawing on walls, climbing on things) and which things are naughty because they are actively dangerous to themselves or others (violence, running in roads etc)

Obviously these are simplified examples but surely it's better to explain the reasoning each time rather than sticking to a blanket phrase?