Bah humbug to the time-out chair

[~twiddlebug~]

I was noseying around on the newly spruced up NP website and found this article :

http://www.naturalparenting.com.au/f...-their-own.cfm

It made me a little cheerier to read it, after a frustrating night on the forums


I also came across this one :

http://www.naturalparenting.com.au/f...-boil-over.cfm

With the 'flippant' remarks bandied around all too often ('Does anybody else want to take this monster home with them?' 'I just want to throw my kids in the bin') I thought these couple of articles might make good reading for anyone interested in some fresher thinking about gentle guidance techniques.

This is the current list of discipline articles on the NP website :

http://www.naturalparenting.com.au/f...discipline.cfm

I loike the way they are collated for easy access (says the librarian in me )

[justincredible]

'I just want to throw my kids in the bin'

Is this a direct quote of me

Thanks B2

[~twiddlebug~]

Ooh, sorry love

No, not a direct quote. I'll admit it does upset me a tad when you say it though

[la]

Similar to the time out chair practice, I read a beautiful blog post last week about the habit of labelling children naughty. It referred to a child throwing food out of their high chair, and the parent calling them naughty for it. The blogger had commented that the child was not naughty, but experimenting. The parent of said child was worried they would forever be picking up the childs food if they didnt scold the child. The blogger suggested they would be grateful when aged 80 if they dropped their food that their child would pick it up.

This anecdote reminded me of the long term benefits of gentle guidance. Not labelling, bitching or punishing - but gently redirecting and working with the children.

My kids can spot a hypocrite a mile away, so i'm trying to integrate more modelling the preferred behaviour in my parenting. For example "geez we don't throw books all over the floor, balls are for throwing. Let's pick these up now, together"

[kelli]

ooops, so I shouldn't have offered to trade my kids for groceries at the checkout the other day?

[Lavender]

Look behind the behaviour – remind yourself that your child is having a problem, not being a problem. Try to work out what is behind the behaviour, even if the button pushing seems deliberate.

This point from the second link really struck a chord with me. It is so easy to loose sight of this.

Thanks Beth

[DesertFlower]

This is how I use timeout with the little boy I look after. I used to do it the traditional way - because that's what his parents did, and he would yell and beat the door and cry, and it was horrible. Then one day something switched in my brain and I was like, it doesn't HAVE to be this way. So the next time he needed a time out, I scooped him, carried him yelling and screaming into his bedroom and shut the door - but I stayed inside. And he started tantruming, but he didn't beat the door - because there was no-one outside to yell at. I was inside. And then I'd start reading a picture book to myself, or playing with blocks or something at the other end of the room (because he didn't like me close by) and in two minutes he'd stop screaming, come over and play with me and chill out. It's kinder to him, and SO much more effective at the calming down bit.

These days when he's getting wound up with his brothers an sister, I scoop him up and take him back to his room, close the door and lie down on the bed with a book. He's completely happy now to calm down right away and come let me read to him. It's so nice. We have long reading sessions when his siblings are being crazy, and I shoo them out of the room if they try to come in. He needs calm time and not always hyperactive yelling time, which I don't think they understand.