"Naughty step" type discipline etc.

[wigglybeezer]

Does ayone else find that Supernanny type discipline does not work that well with their DC's?
We had an incident at the weekend where ds1 behaved badly at the dinner table at a family party and i did not handle it that well (partly because i had caused the incident that he overreacted to).

My ears were burning later as I know that my Dsis thinks I don't discipline him effectively (my mother has admitted that she thinks this). Thing is, that she has one NT DC on whom "naughty step" and reward charts work fairly well (he is not perfect but his behaviour is normal). I have tried these in the past but found they do not generally help with DS1, who is a bit "spectrummy" and whose bad behaviour is usually down to anger-management issues. I have been doing things more akin to Unconditonal Parenting methods and DS1 (while still exploding regularly) has been making progress on calming down and being remorseful.

I HATE, HATE, HATE. that my family think I am soft, I have fought so many battles with DS1 and am not a pushover, but did make a lot of mistakes when he was younger being too interventionist and angry when he tantrummed.

I have called a ceasefire so that peace negotiations have a chance, I have not surrendered (and never will ).

I sit dd1 (AS) on the naughty step, i don't know if it works (sometimes she seems to enjoy it) but at least when family are here it looks like i'm trying . Sometimes it seems to work, she will calm down and say sorry, other times she just sits there and giggles.

DD1 (4.1)doesn't get the NS. I have recently been shutting her in the hallway until she finally sits on it, then I go to her & ask her why she is there. She always knows, but is always giggling. No idea that it is a serious thing not a game.

DD2 (2.4) has been sitting on the NS since about 22 months. Gets it perfectly.

Er...well. the thing is that DS1 is 11, a bit old for the naughty step anyway and when he was younger (from about 2 to about 7) he had really terrible tantrums of the trying to break furniture type...which my Sis didn't witness because she was living abroad at the time. He is much better now.

DS2 has AS but is very mild-mannered. DS3 is NT but is spoiled rotten by his Dad, now if DSis complained about how we have brought him up she would have a point .

We had a pact before we had kids that we would not take offence if we felt we had to speak our mind about each others' DC's, I regret it now.

I seem to let my guard down (and have a few glasses of wine) at family get-togethers and sometimes I forget all my carefully thought out behaviour management plans just when my DC's are in the type of situation they find tricky. I should know better .

AARRGGHH!! Why oh why do people who only have NT DC's think that the NS works with ALL children??!! My 7yo DS1 (NT), it works excellently for, he goes on about once every 6 months, then is good for an eternity. DD....hahahahahahaha lol. Reward systems have never worked, taking toys away has never worked...NOTHING has ever worked (except hoping she has a better day tomorrow). Same for DS2. I just don't think it works for asd DC's.

It's the christmas period isn't it! I also had a family gathering, and my sister obviously thinks she could be a doing a better job than me.
Apparently she would have no problem getting DS to stop waking up between 4:30 and 5:30 every day and she would not tolerate his tantrums.

I told her to be my guest and give it a go, I'll leave ds with her for 1 week if she likes!!!

Doesn't work for my ds1. He likes a quite place when he can zone out, so it's all a bit pointless for him.

Early nights don't work neither, as he is permanently exhausted so would happily go to sleep at any time.

I end up pretty stuck really. I confiscate his video games sometimes, but I feel bad for doing that as video games and lego are the only two things he likes doing.

He beahved pretty well over xmas though. Unlike my NT dses, who were menaces and do get the naughty step but misbehave anyway!

I avoid the whole "Naughty Step" thing because I encourage my two to take themselves away to a quiet corner if they feel angry or upset. I worry that using the NS would mean they would associate being away from everyone else with being punished IYSWIM.

When they were lighter younger I would sometimes make them go to a quiet spot just to calm themselves down. As they've got older they tend to do this for themselves a bit more.

I am re-reading my "Don't Shoot the Dog" book as a refresher.

It has a lot of good stuff on re-inforcement training which does seem to work on my DC's, I just need to keep my eye on the ball and be more consistent again, it gets so complicated with three DS's with totally different personalities (and I am not that brilliant at concentrating and keeping my own emotional outbursts under control at all times !).

I am really trying to encourage DS1 to go to his room to calm down, for his own benefit, but he does regard it as being "banished" at the moment.

The naughty step marked the end of our (brief) relationship with CAMHS, when the nurse insisted that it WOULD work for ds (at at that time undx AS but with loads of problems), I just wasn't doing it right . She said that when he came out of school kicking and screaming we should take him straight home and put him on the naughty step; I argued that what he really needed after a shitty day at school was love and support and understanding but she clearly thought I was mental to consider anything other than punishment, despite the fact that we'd tried the naughty step and other methods ages before with no success whatsoever.

It never worked, never. The progress we eventually made was by learning to understand why he was behaving so badly in the first place and teaching him how to avoid it - again by using love, support and understanding. He's doing much better now (at 11) but we've had to ditch all the dozy professionals to get there (even school - we HE now).

Someone once told me (paediatrician, I think) that strategies for NT children rarely work for ASDs but ASD strategies will work for most children. Unfortunately not many professionals seem to have grasped that yet.

NS was a total failure for us. Ds 11 ASD. He would kick/hit anyone in his way on his way to the step, once there he would kick the banister, has now come away from the wall. he would calm down a little but almost everytime he would go back and do the exact sane thibg which he was in trouble for. Once we spent over 2 hours putting him on the naughty step and he still didn't stop.
It all came to a headhen i was pregnant and i couldn't physically guide/drag him to the stairs. told nurse we were stopping with the ns and she said we hadn't given it long enough. Eh 2 years.

Now we make him stand with uss away from the activity he was doing, i.e. kicking when on the com, stands with dad at other side of room until he calms down. It isn't perfect butr it is better then NS.

Also totallty aghree that NT parents have no idea how hard it is to discipline SN child who can knock ytou out with one piunch, and have no idea why they are doing it

I stopped trying to use NS/time out discipline when I was advised to by a lovely child psychologist, she also told me not to bother with '123 Magic' which is a time-out based discipline method which is peddled taught round here. Such a relief. Choices and consequences (eg you can come and eat dinner now or you can be hungry) work if DS1 is rational, otherwise it's just down to trying to understand the behaviour, limit the consequences for everyone else, and trying to help him understand that hurting people is wrong. Having some success at the moment with phrasing commands as requests (could you be my special helper and pick up those...). Absolutely agree NT parents have no idea how wearing ASD behaviour is and how hard it is to discipline them effectively.

You can only discipline to an extent appropriate for your child's understanding of language.

I've never used it on either child (both had receptive language problems)