Parenting without punishment

[pinkliquorice]

In general mumsnet seems quite punishment happy and this approach seems to be heavily criticised.
Just wanted to start a thread for other parents to share their tips and experiences with not punishing.

Anyone else against punishments?
Anyone wanting to try it?

Interesting thread.
What would the natural consequence be if your child keeps trying to scratch your face? I've walked away and she follows me and does it again.

I've rarely punished mine in the traditional sense. When they were very little, they had time away from me when they were shouting/roaring/having a full on tantrum.

Most of the time I rewarded positive behaviour and tried to make them feel good about doing 'the right thing' - if you can call it that.

Certainly as teenagers, I have never punished them. It sounds so 'right-on' and I'm really not, but we talk pretty much everything out.

I've always tried to treat them as I would want to be treated if the tables were turned - with love and respect, even when they were little. I had none of that and was endlessly walloped, shouted at and belittled and I didn't want that for my DC.

It has worked for me, as they are both nearly grown up and haven't given me any trouble.

What is a natural consequence? If one child pinched another what would the natural consequence look like?

I’m interested in this as I don’t think I’m massively strict but my eldest is only 3 so haven’t had to do any serious punishments yet!

I don't do naughty step, rarely shout and would never smack but I would say I do punish. If dd throws a toy across the room I might remove the toy. If they are fighting over a toy I might take it away. If they misbehave somewhere I might remove them. I would consider these things to be punishments so, yes I punish.

OP are you one of the followers of 'Gentle Parenting'? Sarah Ockwell Smith et al?

having technology taken away for pinching is not a natural consequence

What would a natural consequence be for pinching?

In a lot of situations there when children are being naughty there may not be any natural consequences.
I get my children to behave without punishments, so if my child throws a toy I can get them to stop without threatening no WiFi or naughty step if they throw the toy and it breaks them that is a natural consequence of choosing to throw the toy.

do you have any natural consequence examples to give us Pink?

I am struggling with the concept. I don't know any parents who do this all the time.

But having said that, I have never used naughty step, or sending to your room, or them not going to a party.

If a 3 year old snatches a toy from another child, what would be a natural consequence? that the 3 year old will have the toy? so it would be a positive consequence in response for a negative behaviour? How does the child learn that the behaviour is not acceptable?

That's what I want to know! I gave 9 year old twins they do occasionally pinch, hit, kick eachother or say mean things. It's not often. But when they do they get a warning and if they carry in there us a consequence I. E no WiFi or no screen time.
I'd live to know a natural consequence but nobody on this thread can say!
😂

The natural consequence /punishment would be they can't use your stuff again.

My eldest is fairly compliant so for now I see that this could work for us (so we probably work this way anyway). I can imagine it depends on the child (and parent). This is why I don’t ever label what I do (thinking attachment, gentle etc) because I don’t think one size fits all and I like to take bits of different parenting styles to fit mine and my child’s personality.

There aren’t always natural consequences though, sometimes there are and I let them happen.
If my children are misbehaving we talk about it and I teach them to stop, I don’t take away WiFi or put them on the naughty step because them they are only behaving in order to be allowed WiFi or to get of the naughty step, I don’t see how that can work on the long run.

But what if the toy doesn't break op? What if it smashes something of yours or hits another child?

I don’t really punish my kids. Ive never done naughty step or taken a toy away (unless I had to because they were hitting their sibling with it or something)
I’ll have a go at them, have shouted at times, but generally just tell them it’s not acceptable.
If one child hits another, I will tell them that’s totally unacceptable (maybe have a right go at them about it) and ask them if they would like it done to them etc. That’s always been enough.

Now they’re older, I’ve told them that gadgets are for weekends if they’ve been good in the week ie got all their homework done. That seems to keep them in check.
They are well behaved though. Maybe it’s just a personality thing or my approach generally, I’ll never know.

Francis, how did they get to be throwing an object and breaking it? What is going on at the time? What age are they? Was it stupidity or was it malicious?

We choose natural consequences as our punishments. E.g. You behave badly and you get ignored because no one wants to play with you, you break something on purpose and it goes in the rubbish bin and you don't get another etc. There is always a causal link between the act and the punishment but it is still very much a punishment.

I don't agree they're only behaving to get WiFi. Mine are old enough to know that hurting is wrong but sometimes it's easier to carry on niggling your sister than to stop. It can be fun pinching your sister! Something that makes it not fun would stop the behaviour. It doesn't happen very often but explaining why it's wrong does not work with 10 year olds, they know it's wrong!

How refreshing to read such a sensible post. My DC are all adults now and two have children of their own. My DH and I tried very hard to ‘catch them being good’ whenever possible and not to use sanctions/punishments and found it very effective - they generally wanted to please and do the right thing. I hope we treated them with respect, as we would like to be treated. We’re very proud of the adults they’ve become and even more proud of the parenting choices they’re making with their own children.

@2014newme From the reading I've done on the subject (and I'm not a subscriber really) a natural consequence of pinching/biting/hitting is that the child is made to understand that they have made the recipient unhappy and hurt them, and that as such they might not want to play with them anymore. Young children would just be told 'no, gentle hands please' and be shown how to stroke instead.

Most (not all) parents who subscribe to these methods would distract from pinching a person by saying something along the times of 'Do you need to pinch? Ok, well pinch this cushion then, not your brother because pinching hurts people and makes them sad' etc etc.

I don't believe there are natural consequences for everything. I'm not one for yelling or smacking either (and my child is only 19 months so I've yet to be tested by really naughty behaviour) but there are times when I've taken away a toy that's been walloped in my face two or three times etc. Try telling a very young child 'that makes Mummy sad!'. I did, and did a little boo hoo noise. DS found it hilarious 🙄

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick OP. I don't think that children are naughty. They are just learning!

If you don't follow an unwanted or unkind action with a negative consequence, you are sending the message that the behaviour is acceptable. If a child behaves in a way that is kind, nice, positive there is a chance to reinforce that positive behaviour with a positive consequence. ie, a praise, kind words, a smile, a cuddle.

If you start giving positive attention to a child following an unacceptable behaviour, surely the child will not learn to stop the bad behaviour? I'm not talking about smacking or naughty step, but having a stern face, saying no quite firmly, take them apart if needed.

If my child threw something and it didn’t break, We wouldn explaon why it shouldn’t be thrown as it could break or it could hurt someone but making them sit on a naughty step for 10 minutes or turning the WiFi off for an hour wouldn’t achieve anything.
Tbh none of my children over toddler age have ever felt the need to throw objects, they do it when little because they don’t understand the risk or damage and pubshibg them would be unfair

I think that time out is a 'natural consequence' for young children. It is based on the theory that what children want most of all is attention from their loved ones. Often undesirable behaviour is a consequence of trying to get attention in a negative way. Being isolated in time out / on naughty step, means they have no attention and also have an opportunity to think about why they are there.

I aim to be a permissive parent, but within boundaries. So I try to say yes to most of my children's requests but also expect them to accept it when I do say no, usually with an explanation.

I'm sure I do use 'punishment' sometimes, e.g. my daughter had lost her laptop cable and wasn't putting any effort into finding it, she was then doing her homework on her phone, which was too small and meant she was missing some bits. I guess the natural consequence would be to leave her without access to her laptop but I told her she had to throughly search her room, or else she wasn't going to a planned sleepover.

She was not happy but with help from us, spent a day completely tidying out her clutter, which left her with a nice tidy and clean bedroom, a working laptop and permission to carry on with her socialising. Think this is a natural reward I guess so in the same spirit.