Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Do you find the word "naughty" offensive.....

125 replies

j3 · 27/03/2007 09:13

???

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
vimfuego · 27/03/2007 10:08

How about if you say "you were naughty when you did that".

Yup, I'll take that.

NotReadThread · 27/03/2007 10:09

common sense: teaching your children how to behave appropriately so they will be a valuable member of society, and not assume their feelings are more important than those of anyone else.

DumbledoresGirl · 27/03/2007 10:10

No I don't find the word offensive. I find it descriptive.

But then I only have "Perfect Peters" - is that offensive too?

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

zippitippitoes · 27/03/2007 10:10

after a while children yearn for a straightforward response instead of pussyffoooting yack..it's just quicker

oliveoil · 27/03/2007 10:10

common sense: mummy is in a better mood if she drinks her tea hot and in peace so lets play nicely

Twiglett · 27/03/2007 10:10

oh good one

ScummyMummy · 27/03/2007 10:11

yes, do agree there, zippi

zippitippitoes · 27/03/2007 10:12

I think using we like

we like to walk nicely holding mummys hand don't we

we don't make faces at the man driving even if daddy does do we

is a bit er fey

bozza · 27/03/2007 10:13

But Vimfuego you could interchange a positive word for "naughty", say "helpful" (a nice, patronising one I use on my DC ) and then extrapolate that your child thinks they are always helpful.

You say "you are helpful" meaning "you have just done something helpful".

The child hears "you are helpful" and thinks "my mummy thinks I'm always helpful".

So just say "that was a helpful thing to do". No confusion.

My 6yo is too clever to think that or to think that he is always naughty, even when I tell him that he is. My 2yo is a bit of an egomaniac (goes with the territory of being 2 IME) and probably thinks she is always helpful, but then she will argue that black is white, but hopefully the age of reason will eventually arrive.

I think that if I had only always said to DS "you are naughty" then he might be coming away with low self-esteem and thinking he is always naughty. But because I have said to him that he is naughty, helpful, clever, good, kind, generous, mean etc hopefully he realises that he is a normal human being with both good and bad in him.

FloatingNeedsAnEasterName · 27/03/2007 10:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

KathyMCMLXXII · 27/03/2007 10:14

How about if you say "you were naughty when you did that".

I like this solution.
My db and sil are very keen on never calling the child naughty, only the action. I do get the point about not wanting the child to get labelled, but I think this total detachment of the child from the actions stops them taking responsibility for their actions - surely we are the sum of our actions.
Plus, when my dd is in a certain state of tiredness she does become naughty - she deliberately looks around for things to do like biting or banging. She's not a naughty child but she definitely has naughty states.

vimfuego · 27/03/2007 10:17

after a while children yearn for a straightforward response instead of pussyffoooting yack..it's just quicker

Good job my version is just as quick, and a lot clearer.

apeainapod · 27/03/2007 10:18

I think naughty is a normal word to associate with bad behaviour - it gets used in our house if the kids are being 'naughty'!!

My Preshoolers American teacher says that for her the word conjurs up images of 'naughty' French Tarts!!!!??????

dejags · 27/03/2007 10:18

the world is going mad!!!

completely mad.

so far in the past week I have endured listening to the following:

  1. we shalt not use spoons to feed infants with
  2. we shall never expose our children to negativity (the word naughty will scar them)
  3. we shall not give children full fat milk - eh???
  4. my personal favourite for this week (not heard on MN) is that mixed feeding a newborn (i.e. breast and supplementing with a cup) will result in a baby having blisters in it's throat (this crap was spouted on the labour ward tour I attended a few days ago).

I know I am simplifying some of these issues, but it seems as if everything relating to childcare these days is a bloody chore. Where the f88k is the joy?

FloatingNeedsAnEasterName · 27/03/2007 10:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bozza · 27/03/2007 10:19

dg I think I have a perfect peter and a 2yo.

DS (Y1 and claims to be in top group for literacy so X must also be) came home from school and said "X sometimes says "donnt" for "don't" in guided reading, but it doesn't matter, does it mummy because he is trying"

And I thought, but didn't voice, "you patronising little toad".

littleEasterlapin · 27/03/2007 10:19

Wow, I hadn't realise "naughty" was such an emotive word. DS gets called a naughty minky / cheeky minky all the time, generally with a laugh and a cuddle, when he's done something - well, cheeky.

Naughty to me has connotations of mischief, rather than disobedience.

"Bad" is considerably worse, I would never call him bad.

wildwoman · 27/03/2007 10:20

what dejags said

littleEasterlapin · 27/03/2007 10:20

By the way, can I call for a ban on those "Horrid Henry" books, I am afraid DS will be scarred for life when he learns to read and realises people think he's horrid...

bozza · 27/03/2007 10:22

TBH I think my stock phrase is "stop being naughty" - surely that is not so bad, it implies that the child has the choice over their behaviour, although I realise that it is a bit lazy on my part not to specify what I want them to stop doing. Although nowadays I quite often say to DS "stop winding DD up".

zippitippitoes · 27/03/2007 10:22

a lot of this stuff is teaching theory from the seventies

schools are different from homes

apeainapod · 27/03/2007 10:22

May I ask - what provoked this thread? Has something happened in the UK?

zippitippitoes · 27/03/2007 10:23

or should i say pedagogical semantics

bozza · 27/03/2007 10:23

I never call mine bad or refer to them as bad in anyway so I suppose I have succumbed to a certain level of PCness. Naughty seems more acceptable than bad, as being a behaviour rather than inherrant condition.

NotReadThread · 27/03/2007 10:23

Ah, but they don't call him 'horrid Henry' in the actual stories, IIRC.
They say "don't be horrid, Henry", so it's all OK!