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?

So if my son hits my daughter I don't break up the scrap because they are naturally punishing themselves by hitting each other??

Why do you need tips if it works so wonderfully well for you and your children are perfectly behaved?

I think a lot of people don’t understand this thread. I don’t punish my children, so I don’t turn the WiFi off, I don’t send them to their rooms or to bed early, I don’t shout at them, I dont confiscate their possessions or ground them, I don’t give them no desert or not take them to the park, I don’t slap them and I don’t put them on the naughty step....
No punishments, but their are still boundaries, rules and their bad behaviour is corrected.
It works for me and my children as I can get them to behave without turning the WiFi of or without sending them to their room.
If you need to do that to keep your children safe, then do it but it isn’t the only way to parents

why dd2 stabbed dd1 in the ear with a fork yesterday. The natural consequence of that would have been dd1 battering dd2. I had to intervene!

Sensimilla, because this is a thread started for parents who want to share tips on what has worked for them without punishing. If you think punishing is the only way, then go start a thread about that & you can share tips on punishments. What's the issue?

Marking. I need to read. I can’t understand how people parent without punishments.

Saying that. I have punished. And it is pointless. Does not address the core issue.

Hence why I’m here. But I’m sure I’ve read similar threads before. But I keep resorting to type, and punishing again. Round and round we go.....

Op, if your son is snappy and rude (to other people? Or just you?)and you talk it through and he stops beings snappy and rude then great. But what if he keeps on being snappy and rude? If you've talked it out and you understand the reasons why etc but he does it again I mean? Do you never sanction/punish out of principle or have you just never really needed to because talking about it has always Worked?

Ok, fair enough, I'll butt out Margo...I find unconditional parenting too smug and superior, I must admit. And the kids generally insufferable. So, not the thread for me. I'll get my coat

We set boundaries, the kids just approach them and stop. They are quite capable of fitting in with other people's boundaries too.

We are quite liberal, allow lots of self regulation on bedtimes/sweets/screens/phones/reading etc. just somehow managed to be the luckiest parents alive

I am very, very aware that if our kids ran riot, were defiant and unruly we would be put down as "those parents" - the ones that leave their kids to it, but it seems to have worked fine for us,

they are 15/16 now and hardworking, well behaved, sunny characters - they try to push things a bit more - "can we stay out an extra half hour", sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes "it's a school/work night for us all so we'll pick up when we said" - they understand.

It is as hard for me to understand a child's defiance as it is for the parents of a child who needs firmer handling to understand my girls' biddable natures. We've done nothing special to make them so.

Oblomov17, could you give an example?

DD has ASD so I have to take a different approach to parenting, because punishments just wouldn't work with her and would provoke a meltdown.

She's naturally eager to please but has a tendency to get carried away at times. My main focus is on stopping undesirable behaviour at the time it's happening. So if she's playing with her toys at the sink and splashing water on the floor, I'll tell her to stop splashing. If she doesn't, the plug comes out of the sink and no more playing with water.

If she's poking and prodding at my face, I'll remind her to be gentle. If she doesn't calm down, I'll stand up and remove myself from her reach.

For the most part, it works. If there's something I really need her to do within a certain time and she's struggling, I'll provide a small bribe or distraction until she's done what's needed. If she's having a bad day and on the verge of a meltdown, I'll make as few demands on her as possible.

It’s fine to have a discussion, if you are open to a discussion. If you are set on the idea that punishments are the only way to control you children, please be a parent and go punish them that is your decision.

I made this thread not to discuss whether no punishments works, I know it does I have 5 children who I don’t punish.
I made this thread for parents who don’t punish to discuss it because the rest of mumsnet it already so punishment happy and set on punishing for punishments sake.
If their was a thread for parents who punish to discuss their punishment techniques I wouldn’t join.

If I see my kids are misbehaving, I’m more likely to take them out to the park than to punish them as I can see they probably need to run around or something.
As well as correcting their behaviour and ensuring they understand why it’s not acceptable, I try to understand what happened to cause it and deal with that.

My kids are generally calm though so it’s probably easier.

Whenever Ds1 (ASD tendencies) is punished, he never changes. He just becomes more and more resentful. Towards me.

And then does the irritating thing again and again and again.

And if I ask him why he does it, he doesn’t know.

and the more I think about it and try and figure out why he’s doing it, ie the driving force, the more I don’t know either.

Ds2 is totally different. Sad, remorseful, tries not to do it again.

Totally different children.

Margo I still have reins in my bag for this purpose, and my youngest is 6! It works because of the embarrassment factor. 😂

Margo, an example of what, sorry?

On these subjects it completely depends on the child to be honest. My child is very stubborn, gets into rages, tantrums now, often can't get her to do something if she doesn't want to. A lot of things don't work on her at the moment. Whatever way you parent I just think it completely depends on the child and their personality.

I think to me a punishment is something separate from the infringement, done to make a point. And it’s age dependent how immediate that separation is

So: four year old isn’t gentle with his sister after repeated warnings - no we aren’t going to see the bunnies this afternoon because the bunnies need to be handled gently. That’s a consequence.

Telling them you’ll take a toy off them for a week because they did x is a punishment.

A toddler isn’t going to get that delay and make sense of it, so for them, we warn that bunnies need to be handled gently this afternoon, we go, and any bunny roughing-up we leave, with a ‘we need to be gentle, if we can’t be gentle, we can’t do this.’

So the toddler isn’t helped by a delayed punishment (like a cat really, you can’t tell them off for crapping on the mat four hours later, but you can if you catch them in the act.)

Safety is paramount - a kid heading towards the road can be yelled STOOOP! At as loud as you want. Or grabbed and pulled away - safety trumps all. We don’t yell otherwise and boy, the few times we do he’s stopped in his tracks.

But after that, there is NO point punishing a toddler for it - they just don’t get the action-delay-consequence thing.

I think also never use food or sleep as punishments. So no sending to bed without dinner and no sending to bed early. I don’t want food or bedtime to be emotionally charged like that.

It’s hard, raising respectful, safe, happy little humans. I think never be cruel, that’s the biggie. Proportionate, reasonable, consistent and fair always.

Have you tried getting your 10 year old to stop pinching without taking away WiFi, later on in life they are going to need to know that you don’t punch because it’s mean and can hurt someone not because you will get the WiFi taken away, that won’t happen when they are adults.

What do you think happens to adults who assault people? They enter the CJS. They may go to prison. Your children need to be prepared for a world that punishes people who act in ways that are seen to be unacceptable.

No punishments, but their are still boundaries, rules and their bad behaviour is corrected.
How? How do you enforce the boundaries and rules? How do you correct band behaviour? If DC1 punched DC2, and kept doing it even after you'd spoken to them about the unacceptability of this behaviour, what would you do then? You say you don't need to punish as your approach is working. Lovely. What will you do when it doesn't?

Oblomov, you said you went around in circles and punishment didn't work but you ended up back there again. I was wondering if you could give an example of something your DS did & what happened & then maybe we could come up with some ideas.

You may have made the thread with a purpose in mind but you can't police who can post and what they say.

Personally as an ex nanny & childminder with lots of experience with children plus quite a few friends who are teachers/TA's/childcare workers themselves I have to say I've come across/heard tell of several families where the children have been parented this way - it's done the children no favours at all.

At best when they encounter a world outside their home that DOES enforce consequences (natural and otherwise) it's a shock.

At worst they are entitled obnoxious little so and so's that are constantly in trouble and don't understand why and react by pushing the boundaries even more, struggle to make friends and later relationships and even to cope with having a boss.

The world doesn't work this way.

I recall a thread on a parenting page relating to this style of parenting a while back and it stuck with me. A poster was questioning the whole no punishment/behaviour management thing as her child was going through a bit of a violent stage (he was around 3 from memory) It was nothing wildly awful but he wasn't changing his behaviour with mum already following the advice previously given on the no punishment route and she was roundly advised just bear with it - the child would one day understand.

When the mum said she was thinking of punishing because he'd bitten and kicked his brother that morning one person said 'well, in punishing you're teaching you child to just grow up to be compliant, do as they are told and not think for themselves as you're depriving them of the natural consequences. Is this what you want from your child, just compliance?'. It was said as if compliance was an awful thing and lots of commenters agreed. It got me thinking.

Surely our children do need to learn to be somewhat compliant to get along in the real world? Of course we don't want children to unthinkingly follow all orders like little minions, but in school, they need to be able to follow instructions. In the workplace, they need to do what is requested of them. Both places you need to sometimes get on and do things that you don't want to.

What will happen then, if everyone raises their children to be non compliant when they feel like it with little consequence apart from 'it makes me sad when you do that'? Will we have a generation of young adults that find it difficult to get on in life because as children they've learned that they make the decisions regarding how they behave, and have been largely uncorrected or not punished for bad behaviour by parents? It will be a pretty short sharp shock the day their first punishment hits them, by way of being sacked from work for insubordination!

But to be fair op I asked on the first page for you to define 'punishment'. I understand shouting, naughty step, smacking are clearly punishments but I would consider removing a toy (which has been thrown for instance)a punishment whereas others would consider it a natural consequence. I consider myself to be a parent who punishes but someone doing the self same thing might not! Do you use any technique other than talking any out what the child has done? I'm genuinely interested as to what 'no punishment' actually looks like IYSWIM.

sinceyouask, my DC are completely aware that there are consequences to behaving in a way that others don't find acceptable.
You can still have boundaries.

EG, I would say to my DCs. "DCs, roads are dangerous because they have fast cars on them, so DCs must not ever go on the roads without me. I want you to walk with me on the pavement & if you do, all the way to the end of the road, then you can jump of the wall/post a letter/twirl around the lamp-post." Most of the time that worked.

If the DCs didn't stay by me, I would say "DCs, I told you that you had to stay by me, so you can't jump off the wall. If you don't stay by me again, then I will have to put the reins on. It is your choice, stay by me or put the reins on. You decide." If they ran away I would tell them that they had chosen to have the reins on and then put the reins on, reminding them that this was the option they had chosen. When they went into complete melt down on the pavement as a result, I would stand there and wait till they finished no matter how awkward it was & then we'd go on from there.

It is not punishment or anarchy - there are other ways.

Okay, I think it’s easier to use this approach in children 4+ say not toddlers.
Is a child older than this constantly hitting a sibling etc despite being told not to and their sibling being in pain normal behaviour? No there’s something going wrong there putting them on the naughty step or confiscating electronics are not going to resolve this issue.