DTD1 got a BAD drawing habit...not sure how to punish her

[SlightlyMadSpringBunny]

She just persists in writing her name in inappropriate places. On walls, funiture, I even had a phonecall from one of her friends the other day to say that she had written on her banister. I was so embaressed.

We have tried the usual punishments - sit on your bed for ?? minutes. We have tried removing treats. With this latest incident we confiscated the pen/pencil box. The difficulty is that this has an impact on DTD2, although we do get them out for her which is physcological torture for DTD1.

Tonight when DTD2 had the pencils, DTD1 found one laying around and things went quiet for a bit. We then found that she had written DTD2s name (she has realised writing her own name is a bit silly) on furniture in our room. Now she has been told she can't go swimming tomorrow with DTD2. I feel that this is right as she needs serious punishment due to the many warnings over the last few months but can't help feeling she is missing out on something that is an 'important' skill. Not only that but it is probably going to be a harsher punishment for DP who will have to sit and listen to her tantrum for an hour whilst I have gone swimming with DTD2.

Any other suggestions welcome....

She is (almost) 6 BTW

Totally remove all pens and pencils from unsupervised play and warn other parents too till she cant be trusted?

Which we have tried to do - but that makes it difficult with DTD2 feeling liek she is being punished.

Oh Yep.....oh arse

Blimey, that is an odd one. Wonder why she's so keen to stamp her name on things? I mean, writing in the wrong places is common, but she's a bit young to be spraying her graffiti tag all over town. Something deep and psychological about being a twin?

Think you are doing the right things wrt swimming and confiscating pens, tbh.

What a nightmare! I think you must keep pens locked away but allow them out whenever either of them want to draw and just closely supervise.

I think she's old enough to understand why she mustn't do this - explain that she can't visit friends if she can't be trusted not to do this.

Try to appeal to the 'grown up' side of her nature - tell her that only babies write on furniture etc - she's a big girl now etc etc.

Very difficult - you have my sympathy

At the moment she has been told that she can have them back after she has appologised to the other parent (likely to be Tues). I am hoping that this will give a closer link to the bad act, the puishment & the 'saying sorry'. Do you think I should confisacte them for longer?

DD1 was into writing on walls until she was 3.5 years old. We tried all kinds of punishment, but in the end our walls were so destroyed with marker pens we just let her get on with it and re-painted the walls as soon as she stopped! Hope DD2 (now 4mo) doesn't develop the habit or DH will have a nervous breakdown!
That probably isn't any help to you though.

I wouldn't mind so much is she was 3. They didn't do it much as toddlers. Maybe she feels deprived of the excitement of grafitti and is making up for it now?!!??!

I asked dd who is almost the same age and she said she should be made to clear it off herself and also 'give out' to her.

It's a tough one, I think what I'd do is make her pay for the damage with pocket money if she gets it. We give dd and ds 1 Euro pocket money each week and if dd breaks something then she has to pay to repair the damage. Or at least give a contribution towards it.

I would also make sure she always has lots of paper and pencils and encourage her to create lots of stuff there. give her a notebook that she can carry around with her and tell her tp practice her signature in it.