naughty mat - am i too harsh?

[bourneville]

I started using a naughty mat a couple of months ago. It worked wonders, I am calmer cos I have something to fall back on, dd knows where she stands, and she usually obeys me once I have threatened the naughty mat.

Thing is, recently she has been testing my limits more than usual so there are now quite a few threats of the naughty mat per day, and today she even was saying "naughty mat naughty mat" like she wanted to go on it (after I'd threatened it) so on the naughty mat she went and of course yelled the place down the whole 2 minutes she was on there!

So far I have only had to use it for when she is refusing to come and get dressed, or come and put her coat on, including if she turns on her jelly legs ! - oh also for if she refuses to help tidy up. I feel a bit mean & controlling, cos it's only cos she's not doing as I tell her to, and it occurs to me that in Supernanny it's usually used for really bad behaviour like hitting isn't it? Or have I remembered wrong? Is it ok to use it just for not doing as she's told? I'm just afraid that she'll test & test limits until the naughty mat is no longer much of a threat to her, and if she starts behaving REALLY badly the naughty mat isn't enough of a punishment, iykwim.

Sounds like you might be over-using it and with punishments, you have to keep switching to make them novel. Naughty mat is just a version of time out and has to be the nuclear option. What about trying lesser punisments first, like the pasta jars and the star / faces charts?

I also think you might need different techniques for different things. For example, I have a face chart in the kid's bedroom which is for them putting away their clothes, toys and books and keeping the room tidy. It has 3 time periods - Morning, After School and Bedtime. So 3 faces per day, and they either get smiles or sad faces depending on tidyness levels. But I only use that chart for one behaviour that I want to address. For more general stuff like "doing what you're told" it's back to the pasta jar, cut in Cbeebies viewing time, etc., with naughty step as nuclear option.

Trouble is, dd is very clear about the naughty step now. Once when she went all jelly legs on me in the bathroom, I threatened to leave the room (as I had done a few times in the past) and she said "Naughty mat!"

But they're adaptable! A sticker chart might be a very good idea if I sit down and explain very clearly to her what it's for, cos doing as she's told really is becoming an issue, I am SICK Of having to ask her several times and then end up resorting to the naughty mat threat. And it's all very negative isn't it, not enough of the good girl well done thing going on!! (which is a pity cos generally she is a very very good girl.)

The good thing about the pasta jar, is that you can add more for every time she's a good girl.

DD never fails to remind me that she's said please without me prompting, so needs an extra piece of pasta etc.

Sorry, explain the pasta jar?

The way I do it, is to start off the day with 5 pieces of pasta in the jar.

Every time DD / DS is naughty, one piece gets taken out. When they're good, one extra piece gets put in. The aim of the game is to make sure that by the end of the day, they have more than 5 pieces left in the jar, because of course, they're always much good-er than naughtier!

It's a huge morale boost for them when they have 10 pieces left, proving what a good boy/ girl they are.

My only problem is that it sometimes turns into a bit of a competition for them, ending in a tantrum for the child who has less....

2 ways to do this. the more positive is that you have an empty jar and you add a piece of dried pasta for everytime the child does something good. At the end of a set time period the pasta is converted to a reward.
The other way is to start with say 5 pieces in the jar and remove one when she is naughty and put it back when she is good. This has negative connotations however as its the removal of something- depends what you prefer

Sorry- cross posted with caligua. didn't mean to be negative about your pasta jar method - i was just explaining both

Oh right, pasta becoming a reward makes sense all of a sudden. DD would love putting a piece of pasta in a jar in itself however!

But, it would have to end in a reward to really be worth something to her, because she's too young (2.3) really to understand the numbers thing, or at least to appreciate it anyway.

Plus, she has chocolate now & then anyway and I 'm not going to stop that cos I'm a chocoholic myself and I don't want to wait till dd has a full jar of pasta before i get a bit of chocolate!!

This is great though, it's getting me thinking more positively rather than in a punishment way...I had for some reason forgotten all about Supernanny's sticker charts etc etc... I think it all feels like too much organising! I want a quick fix! Plus, tbh, I feel weird about the rewards thing, I want dd to learn to behave herself because she wants to behave herself, not because she gets something out of it, iykwim?

Oops i deleted a bit there, the chocolate bit made no sense whatsoever! I said the obvious reward for dd would be chocolate, but that that would feel like bribery which i don't like, before the next sentence about chocolate!

Hmm, I didn't realise it was negative. I thought it was positive because you always start out with some. What happens if you're naughty before you've earned any pasta bits with the starting off empty method?

I think i am going to try the pasta jar or sticker chart, just for getting dressed as that is our problem area, and after the jar is full or a certain amount of stickers she will get a magazine (she loves them - eg Thomas mag or something. Already bought one today, that gave me the idea, so I hope she's forgotten about it! ) THat way, I leave chocolate out of it!

Ooh, magazine's a good idea. Massive luxury.

Can one buy sticker charts anywhere?

Caligyulea- i spose that the way it works with the pasta jar is that you don't do anything if they're naughty- you only reward the good behaviour- you don't take any of the pasta away at all

I am going to start the pasta jar thing tomorrow. But been thinking, what do I do if it doesn't work and she still refuses to get dressed?

Just physically make her get dressed. I think you get to a certain point with toddlers where they have buggered about beyond the point of return.

I don't think that's physically possible! She literally puts on jelly legs, squirms about all over the floor and finds it all very funny. Next to impossible to put trousers on her that way, and tbh it still feels like she's won even if i could. it's not that she doesn't want to get dressed, she's just playing power games with me. That's why I instigated the naughty mat for it, it absolutely infuriates me!

Maybe I'm just caught in a power struggle ? I just hate having to run after her, catch her, make her get dressed. I want her to obey my command to come and get dressed!!

ELC do "incentive charts". They have magnetic stickers in the shape of stars, rosettes, smiley faces etc. and the board is divided up into different days. You can write on and then wipe clean.

Excellent. I think we'll be taking a trip to Croydon tomorrow then!

Lie her on the floor, at a 90 degree angle to yourself.

Drape the leg nearest her head over her stomach.

Put trousers on. The leg will hold her down, and leaves both hands free.

This also works for shoes, socks, nappies, etc.

Don't try to calm her or make her do as she is told while you are using this method, it generally doesn't work. It is an extemely effective last resort when you have literally run out of time and patience.

Obviously an expert colditz . So really, it would be better to do that than use the naughty mat? Dyou think she'd give up trying it on if I did that? When she was a growing baby I frequently had to force clothes on her, she's getting her own back now!

I have a 2.6 year old boy. I have found with doing this that he will give up after a few times, when he realises he cannot get out until he has his trousers on.

What also works sometimes is saying "Oh wow, look at this! Come and see if your feet fit in these tiny holes here look! "WOW^!" or something equally cringemaking.

I must admit I only use the naughty step in nuclear situations, it is my big red button, such as if he hits someone, or throws a large/hard/heavy object at someone. If he is fighting with a friend, I time them both out. But if I uesed it a lot, I think it would lose a lot of it's effectiveness. He wouldn't be as bothered about it.

How old is she? My DD is 3.8 and what works for her is "d'you want me to dress you like a baby?"

The idea of not being a big girl able to do it all by herself is too much of an insult for her to stomach.

Colditz, that sounds like a wrestling hold!