Is this too harsh punishment for 6.5 year old?

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DD6 was naughty last night, hitting and not doing what she was told.
This morning tried talking to her to tell her her behaviour was unacceptable last night and because of this, as a consequence she will not go to the climbing wall with her friend as arranged.
Again hitting and throwing cushions at me. I warned her by saying if this behaviour continues she will not go horse riding tomorrow either.

Again she continued and I warned if behaviour continues she won't go to the park after school with her friends (there's going to be a big get together with parents etc)

Is this all too harsh. I know I will get resistance from her but I don't want further bad behaviour from her.

Shall I keep to my decision or shall I say if I see good behaviour this evening you can go to horse riding tomorrow?

Surely immediate natural consequences ?

Hitting mum= Separate - so euther sit in the stairs and calm down (.not the naughty step. Thinking step if you must ) or room or mum leave the room child is in.

Removal of a thing for a time at that point maybe.

Not doing something the next day , when we n they’ve really forgotten why is not really going to be very useful

Im not great believer in punishments like that. They don't work, and you have an even more angry resentful dc on your hands.

@PutYourBackIntoit has given excellent advice.

I personally think that for this sort of behaviour, the punishment needs to be instantaneous. Punishing by removing things in advance is, imo, elongating the issue when I believe a clean slate approach is needed to some extent. Or if going to use future activities as the punishment, I think this needs to be shared as if we have 3 occasions of this behaviour then the consequence will be xyz.

Sounds harsh to me. It's not working because everything you say she will lose she loses so what's the point

Anyone struggling with this approach of carrot and stick - and let’s face it, it’s not working - I thoroughly recommend a read of Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn.

@AddsVsGeorgs

Hitting is not on

She has to learn nice things will be taken away

If she ‘earns it back’ by being ‘nice’

You are basically telling her that she can hit you, but as long as shes good after, it will all be ok and she can do fun things

You warned her, she carried on.

I would personally keep to what you have said

Agreed

if an aversive consequence is going to work (and I am not sure they are a good idea but that's a separate discussion) it need to be instant. "No xxx tomorrow" clinically doesn't work. Can i ask how long ago you stopped being shouty with her?

Not necessarily too harsh but obviously not effective for your DD so no point in carrying on with that style of punishment. I imagine that when she's in that headspace it's hard for her to see past the moment and think about what it means to miss out on an event in the future. As others have said, I would try to understand what's driving the behaviour and find a way to address it in the moment (e.g. removing her from the situation, and when calm making her address the consequences of her behaviour by tidying / fixing / apologising). Then in the future try to avoid whatever triggers the behaviour.

She’s also adopted - how old was she when you adopted her?

Having been on lots of parenting courses - a child who has lost control of their behaviour in that moment is like a toddler having a tantrum - you are not going to get sense out of them by piling on punishments - they need to be allowed to calm down.
She is 6 - it was better to deal with the hitting when it happened not the next morning. And no, unless you warned her poor behaviour would result in lost activities you should just take things away from her. She needs to have a warning before something so major is taken away.
And please remember she is 6 and she does not have the full emotional control you have as an adult she is learning this.

sorry can I just add the parenting courses say children need to be allowed to learn from their mistakes and given a chance to fix things so something like if she doesn't hit anything today she can go horse riding but if she does hit something than she won't be allowed to.

I have learnt never to do the keep doing and xyz thing as once they are in that frenzy, they dont stop and you end up taking more and more away. I find just ignoring them after the first punishment and talking once they have calmed down works a whole lot better.

OP I was very guilty of this when my children were younger too....
"In the past we've both said down eith her when she is calm and We've talked about emotions and feelings of anger frustration etc.
We've explained to her that she is a kind and caring little girl etc and that hitting is unacceptable behaviour.
We've given her ideas on what to do if she feels angry like hitting a pillow, stamping her feet, dancing"

I realised I was telling my children ideas - they had to own their ideas so children need to be coached so it sinks in and they have ownership ie say instead something instead like "When you are feeling mad what can you do insteading of hitting?"

@SirenSays

My mother loved to threaten to take things away. In the end I told her I didn't want to do any of my extra curriculars and slowly quit them all. I stopped telling her when I got invitations to things as it was easier to miss out on birthday parties and school discos than it was to constantly have them threatened. Until I was a teenager, when I'd just lie about them instead.

That sounds really difficult @SirenSays

Makes me even more determined not to use this kind of punishment with my own children.

Your discipline tactics need to change. The first punishment was fine but then your daughter lost control and you just escalated the punishments, when what you should have done was - remove the audience. I would drive past the climbing wall, when her friend is there, to reinforce the punishment by showing her what she is missing and then tell her calmly she can gain the other treats back with good behaviour.

Next time, offer one punishment at a time, don't cause the situation to escalate and remove the cushions as well. It sounds like she winds you up and it's a battle between the two of you, when you haven't been consistent from the start or you wouldn't be on here seeking advice!

Far too harsh, and too conceptual - you’re punishing her for stuff that happened days ago. What’s her incentive? How does she get back into your good books? You need to give her a way back.

@nimbuscloud

She’s also adopted - how old was she when you adopted her?

Is she OP?

How old was she when you got her? Was there a lot of disruption? Was their violence in the household/not enough food? Is she delayed in any way? This could have a huge impact on her behaviour?

You're essentially punishing her friend too as they miss out on meeting up.

You should give her chance to get the activity back if she improves her behaviour.

There's lots of good advice from other posters.

When ours were that age we used to do marbles in a jar & they would choose the treats e.g. 10 marbles = sweets from shop 20 marbles = trip to Poundland
You can take them out but ideally it's more about them getting rewarded.

I don't think threatening them with things when they're in a rage helps - some children do see a red mist more than others. Wait until they have calmed down before you discuss.

I hate this style of punishment. My DH used to jump straight to the extreme end, removal of games machine, your not going to movies, he never looked at time out, or time out abs a conversation about behaviours. It was always taking something away. It doesn’t work for your DD and it didn’t work for my DD at that age. She was stubborn and I ended up doing a star chart instead and rewarding positive behaviour. You need to change your consequences to something more immediate

Schools haven't had punishment policies for decades. They have behaviour policies. Teachers are told to catch children being good and praise, praise, praise.
I hate the way some MNers love to gloat about punishments. I wonder what education psychologists and teachers think of these parents.
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@Twickytwo that’s a bit Sunday school.

One thing that worked well for us at this age was to get dd to name 5 of her strengths.
I can still remember them; cartwheels, art, baking, kindness, gymnastics.
We drew around her hand and she wrote one strength on each digit and she learnt which digit was which strength.
I think we wrote it physically on her hand too, and she remembered which finger was which strength.

If we were quick enough to spot her anger building (which since we've realised is mainly anxiety) we would ask her which of her fingers could help her right now, and she might run outside and do a ton of cartwheels and not feel so mad.

As she got a bit older we didn't need to remind her as much as she used the strategy herself. There were a lot of what seemed like impulsive mug cakes made Still are, come to think if it!

We always try to avoid punishments that impact other children. So I wouldn’t cancel an activity with a friend unless it was activities with friends that was a persistent problem and we simply needed to stop them for awhile.

I still found at 6 that short punishment directly linked to the moment make the most sense. If she is hitting then we stop what is going on and sit. If she refuses to sit she goes to her room. It’s simplistic, but it’s about recognizing our emotions are getting the better of us and taking a chance to calm down. I would also state that explicitly.

[quote SmidgenofaPigeon]@Twickytwo that’s a bit Sunday school.[/quote]
They’re not wrong though.

It’s when people constantly shout and hit their children and seem surprised when the children shout and hit in response.

We don't use discipline which affects the next day or the long term, it just doesn't work (learned from experience) it makes things too drawn out and DS (5.5) will usually have forgotten the next day what he had done wrong, but not forgotten about the exciting trip they've been looking forward to all week.