What discipline for drawing on walls, carpet?

[InionEile]

How would you discipline a 4-year old for drawing on walls or carpet with a black crayon? We have washed it off, mostly, but the walls and carpet still look grubby. If he were 2, I would blame myself for having let him get hold of the crayons unsupervised but he is 4 and we have told him numerous times that crayons are only used on coloring books or paper. We had taken his crayons away for previous behavior like this but today an older child gave them to him and we didn't notice until the damage was done (he did a lot in 10 minutes!).

My DH did something similar when he was DS's age and he said his parents smacked him and sent him to bed with no supper and took away some toys. That's excessive (obviously the smacking is not even on the table) I think but equally my DH said that at least he learned his lesson and never did something like that again.

I feel like discipline never gets through to my DS. I try to give natural consequences e.g. 'we're so tired from cleaning up this mess you made with the crayons, we can't read you bedtime stories tonight' or taking away the toys / crayons in question but it doesn't seem to have much impact. Is this just 4-year olds testing boundaries or should he really know better by now?

I'd express my disappointment, get him to help clean it up while explaining why we don't draw on walls then forget about it.

4 year olds aren't renowned for their ability to think of the consequences before they do stupid stuff.

4 yr old is old enough even 3 is . My 3 yrqr old used to do this and she knew it was wrong used to hide and do it. Id tell her off bin her crayons. Then eventuay id buy her more frayons shed do it again. after that she went for her dads pens that did it for me.

Although i make a point of not smacking i did smack her on her bottom at that point and it worked she never did it again. im jot saying you should smack her. but remove her crayons pens for a while until shes begging for them. Have a fixed place gor drwing so can keep sn eye on her. I only let mine do crafty things on kitchen tablein the playroom mischief starts lol painting is never allowef but in the kitchen or outdoors if its good weather

That's the type of reaction I've had before, Gisia - I explain clearly why it's wrong, say I'm sad he made a bad choice and then take the crayons away. I don't ask him to help clean up as he would enjoy that too much(!) and would probably think it was a fun game. Also this time the crayon was pretty hard to get off and his 'helping' would not have been any use.

I've taken his crayons away a million times too and he never seems to care that much.

Could be he is just destined to never use crayons until he's 12 years old and can be trusted with them... maybe....

If he'd enjoy cleaning up and you don't want to help I'd make him sit there and not move while he watched me do it, take away crayons and go back to only letting him have them completely supervised for a while. Also if we had something fun planned that day I might make a big deal of cleaning up and tell him we can't go and do whatever it was because Mummy had to spend so long cleaning up his mess (I'm trying to be better at showing DDs the consequences of when they're naughty rather than just punishing them in some way).

Smacked for drawing on a wall!

Crayons only under intense supervision, perhaps at the kitchen table, would be a better option than banning them altogether. Same way playdoh or painting is fun but is strictly restricted to the kitchen table only.