Do you do time out or the naughty spot?

[myturn]

I guess the point is to find a strategy that works for you and your family. Every strategy is using love, just finding something that suits your own style and fits in with your lifestyle - and I agree with Laranna, they all take time and effort if you are going to use any strategy effectively.

Personally I think we reason too much with little kids - and sometimes they don't need to know 'why', they just need to follow the instruction, and they can't always understand the impact their behaviour has on others - even if you tell them. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't explain at all (of course they will never learn unless you do), but sometimes life is about just doing what you are told without always understanding why - after all as adults we have to do this at times as well!

but it doesn't really matter which one you use - the best strategies will be those that are 'evidence based' and have research to back up their effectiveness - but even they won't suit every family.

so the question - use the naughty spot or time out - they are kind of the same thing really... so it doesn't really matter which one you use - personally, I prefer the idea of time out, cause it is reinforcing the idea of calming yourself down to deal with a situation in a healthy way and by making good choices - rather than the 'naughty spot' which is insinutating that you are "naughty" - no child is naughty (IMO) but they make bad choices, like everyone, and as such their behaviour is naughty....

I agree that it's probably best to withhold judgement until you've read something properly - a brief overview on here really doesn't do it justice - what 1-2-3 Magic is really getting kids to do is make a choice - and in most cases it's giving them 2 chances to make it. The choice is - follow my instruction, or go and have some space until you are ready to do what I ask. it is really only recommended to start at the age of 2 or 3 (where it is developmentally appropriate) and up until about 10 (it think). Anyway - sounds like you have a good plan anyway Mayaness - just hopefully you won't rule it out totally for some people - as it might suit other parents better than the strategies you use for your kids.

it is interesting that these kinds of questions always seem to create such heated debate from people - bit like religion and politics!

[Smoke Jaguar]

I think kids are best prepared for adulthood if we take the time to explain as much as we can when they are little. You're right, adulthood provides such challenges that having experience with reasoning can only enhance the child's preparedness for it and cannot hinder it. Too many times I've seen firefighters do dangerous things on orders they felt compelled to follow without question, only to be told that they could have put their hand up to be counted and not been in a burn over situation to begin with. Following instructions is not a priority for us in our home - it's understanding what we want from each other and finding a happy medium that is.

[fionas]

I'd actually read the book Mayaness before you can compare the different methods. Saying 1-2-3 Magic doesn't take as much emotional and intellectual effort as PET is rubbish and quite harsh.

Yes, and dare I say it, dismissing something so wholeheartedly without reading about it doesn't take any emotional or intellectual effort at all.

[Smoke Jaguar]

It's easier to follow a technique that has been laid out before you than to examine your own childhood, your parenting models (i.e. mostly your own parents), the values you want to impart to your children, confront your parenting fears, confront left-overs from your childhood, explain your rationale to your partner and ignore the 'conventional' wisdom that everyone is very free with (can't tell you how many times I've been advised to use 'time-out' because it 'works'). Yes, it's harder. It takes a lot more brain-wrapping-arounding. It just is. And I only mean that it's harder to begin with and to cut out the 'chatter' of the 'shoulds' and the 'tsk-tsks' that come from people who don't know your children and won't be around when the going gets tough, anyway.
I know about many of these methods because lots of people I know use them. When they ask me about the way I do things they concede that they don't have the time or energy for it because of various life pressure reasons. It doesn't come 'naturally' in our society.
You can't tell me, without challenging yourself to read Alfie Kohn, Jan Hunt, Robin Grille or the PET guy (Gordon?), that it's as hard to learn as 1-2-3-magic, time outs, etc. Without reading something you know very little about, how can you say that? Whereas I've actually read about the other types of 'discipline' methods and decided against them.

[myturn]

I think 'easier' is personal as well.

Personally I think it is harder to 'follow' any strategy 100%, I think it's 'easier' to just go with the flow. I agree that it's hard when you are consciously thinking about what decisions you are making and what the best strategy to handle the situation is for your family. But that doesn't mean it's the same for everyone else and following something to the letter of the law is difficult as well.

It is "easy" to bring up other people's children.... but I think it would be a rare parent that wouldn't think about what they are doing and make choices based on what they think is best.

i guess that is why we are putting out our ideas and letting others choose what is right for them.

[onthefly]

Personally I think we reason too much with little kids - and sometimes they don't need to know 'why', they just need to follow the instruction, and they can't always understand the impact their behaviour has on others - even if you tell them. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't explain at all (of course they will never learn unless you do), but sometimes life is about just doing what you are told without always understanding why - after all as adults we have to do this at times as well!

I totally agree with Mayaness on this one. I think it's unreasonable to just expect people to do things just because we want them to. And, yes, sometimes adults do this too, but I don't agree it's a good thing at all! "I was just doing my job" has gotta be one of the worst ever excuses for some abysmal behaviour.

I don't want to train my kids to do things just because I (or some other authority figure) say so.

I don't see any heated debate in here, just different perspectives on things and attempts to explain ourselves. That's all. We won't all agree on what's best for our respective children, but I should think that's to be expected really since they're all different people

[myturn]

We won't all agree on what's best for our respective children, but I should think that's to be expected really since they're all different people

I agree. That's my point.

[Smoke Jaguar]

I guess that with the way I approach things it's not even a 'strategy'. It's a completely different way of thinking about children, their place in the world, their development, their potential, their unique gifts, what your own strengths and weaknesses are and how you want your children to be by the time they are teenagers. It tends to fly against the conventional way of thinking about children, and it certainly goes against the grain of time-outs and isolation tactics, and goes against reward-systems and planned consequences (as opposed to natural/logical consequences). It's in this way that it's harder - it's a hurdle to get over. Yes, it takes conscious thought about how you want to be with your kids and what you want the end result to be. And it's only 'harder' initially. When you work through the challenges to what we have been taught about 'discipline' up until the point we have our own children (who DIDN'T have ideas about how they would parent when it was their turn??) and get to the other side it's much easier to follow through because reactions responses become automatic and it's logical. It's stuff that enhances human relations, not just kid-wrangling Where in the adult world do we put people in time-out when they stuff up? Some people benefit from a self-imposed time-out when they're overloaded, and teaching children that if they're overwhelmed it's ok to take themselves away for a recharge is always a useful thing. Putting them there without that self-awareness is something else again.
This is all stuff I have thought extensively about since studying developmental psychology and trying to justify traditional 'discipline', only to find myself going completely the other way, just in time before DS was born (I was pregnant with him when doing that unit!). What I know about brain development, well-being outcomes and the implications of things that happen to our kids from birth till about 5-6 means I just cannot justify using anything other than understanding and compassion. Yes, I know we all have this, and what I'm talking about is using it quite overtly, instead of the old "I'm doing this because I love you", which is a contrary thing to present to a child, where they are feeling anything but accepted and understood. Love and compassion are things I believe I can't be efficient with and they can't be obscure. If I'm motivated by anything other than those two things then I tell my kids - I'm doing x because I'm in a hurry/it's cheaper/it's safer. How is that long-winded? How is an apology in terms they understand 'too much explanation'? As I said, I believe they are well-worth my effort. I'm gonna get stuff wrong, for sure. If I have reason to believe a method does more harm than good then I'm not going to use it. If I believe a method will help my kids expand their emotional development more than another method, I'll go with the one I think will serve them now and in the future much better than the other one.
Really, you do the best you can with the best information you have at the time. I believe in what I do because I believe it's the best way I can be with my kids, knowing what other methods are aiming for and how to do them, and what the risk of those methods are. I've weighed up a lot of information, because I was surrounded by a lot of conflicting chatter when my first was born. It took a HypnoBirthing practitioner to teach me to allow myself to 'be myself' with my kids, and not what anyone else expected me to be to get me on the road to parenting that I ultimately have chosen.
Because, ya know what? When I log off BB, when we close up for the night and tuck into my family (kinda not hard to do that at any time of the day, living on a farm!) I know that the only people I answer to are the little people I am responsible for. That goes for anyone else reading this - you ultimately answer to your children. It helps me to think about when they're in their 20s and asking me why I decided on the approach I took. What's your answer going to be? Will you be happy with it? Those two are purely rhetorical, by the way, and I won't entertain any discussion on your responses to those rhetorical questions - they are between you and your children
We're all learning, and always learning. I learn so much from my kids, and all kids are amazing in how they learn, how they adapt, how some survive dreadful experiences etc.
The fact that you guys have chosen methods to achieve an aim is great. I think you attribute a bit too much conscientiousness into the general population when you assert that ALL parents are doing the best for their kids. Because, believe me, they aren't ALL doing this - far from it. The BB population is not very representative at all. Many more parents than I'm comfortable even thinking about have no interest in changing past patterns or doing things differently from how their parents did them - they just don't have the skills, the emotional capacity and come from backgrounds that don't value children at all.
Thanks for the discussion, peeps!

[fromscratch]

Myturn I whole heartedly agree with you.

Strictly IMO it's important children have bounderies from a young age but those boundaries need to be age appropreate (sorry about my spelling baby brain fog is killing me) and the consequences also need to be age appropreate.
As adults we have punishment for undesirable behaviour and consequences such as Jail, fines and criminal records.

So now knowing about my childhood, at our house things are very different.......
We do both time out and naughty chair. They are one and the same here.

Time out after one warning, unless it's hitting, spitting etc. Then no warning straight to chair.
Time out starts once the child is calm and quiet, if there is any shouting out, leaving the chair, crying, screaming etc time starts again.
The time a child stays on the chair is age dependant for a 2 year old would be two minuites, 3 year old 3 minuites etc.
The rules are clearly defined each time. And after each sit on the chair we discuss why we were there and how to avoid the chair next time.
Goin to our bedroom dosn't work here (way too much fun stuff there)
and I'm not comfortable with chemicals in the bathroom and laundry. So we sit at the front door on the chair. But never behind the door.
Dd hasn' sat on the chair for a while now. But it's there and she knows it will be used if it's needed.
When we are out at friends and familys homes we use the floor in the room I am in. That way we are consistant all the time. If we were shopping no matter what, I leave the trolly (no matter how long we were there or how full the trolly) It dosn't take long for little ones to figure out the rules when you explain them each time and follow through.
No hitting, no abuse, no yelling. When my children understood the rules the undesirable behaviour stopped.
Even bought the chair back for ds hitting his little sister and that has stopped. Again I'm not yelling, not being nasty, not engaging his attempts at arguments with me. Works for us.
It is important to write down the rules for the chair so you know them and once the kids can read, they can read them. Thats why I tell the chidren the rules before each sit on the chair. That way everyone knows the rules before the punishment begins. And we always chat about it afterwards and discuss how to avoid the chair next time.
Time will come when the chair is made redundant and the chat takes over. The age varies for each child. As I said we recently bought back the chair for ds and his bad behaviour (hitting his sister) stopped as soon as he realised I was serious. Also worked for loosing his temper and shouting at me.
I don't believe it has anything to do with doing what he's told by authority figures. It teaches children that some behaviours are unaceptable in society. Like real life as an adult.

[Smoke Jaguar]

I disagree. Chairs and time outs do not apply to adulthood for undesireable behaviour at all. For instance, I've had employers who have behaved very badly indeed. One of them broke equal opportunity and discrimination laws, as well as flouting OHS laws. He didn't get a chair, didn't get timed. I had to pursue him all the way into the EOC with his lawyer in tow and we had 'long-winded' discussions about what he did wrong, with a mediator. He's behaved very badly before and no-one dared take him to task until I did, and no-one stuck their neck out to support me, because in real life people get away with very undesireable behaviour. Real life as an adult is not prepared for by time outs to think about what you did wrong - most of the time you watch people be treated unfairly and then hope like hell you're not the next target, so you keep a low profile, trying to keep out of the firing line and watch power-hungry people disempower other people who are trying to make the world a better place for everyone else, and wishing you had the nerve to do the same, if you weren't so afraid of the 'consequences' to your personal circumstances.
Being afraid of punishments (fallout, retribution, demotion, redundancy, pay-cut, cut in hours, exclusion from social circle etc) is not what being a brave adult in the real world is about. I guess I decided I want my kids to negotiate their terms with the world, so I allow them to negotiate with me - the only hard and fast rules I have in our home are about firearms (we have guns on our farm), moving vehicles, animal welfare and bodies of water. Everything else, pretty much, is negotiable as it hones in those reasoning skills and gives them a sense of control over their own destinies. Pretty confronting to a lot of parents, I concede. It's not the easiest way to parent, either - the brain gymnastics are pretty constant! I know it's not for everyone.
Just had to disagree, rather emphatically, with the idea that time out, chairs, 1-2-3's etc prepare children in any way for the adult world. To me that does not have a logical flow. I am yet to see the connection between the adult world and these constructed consequences. JMO.

[Miss E]

Being afraid of punishments (fallout, retribution, demotion, redundancy, pay-cut, cut in hours, exclusion from social circle etc) is not what being a brave adult in the real world is about. I guess I decided I want my kids to negotiate their terms with the world, so I allow them to negotiate with me - the only hard and fast rules I have in our home are about firearms (we have guns on our farm), moving vehicles, animal welfare and bodies of water. Everything else, pretty much, is negotiable as it hones in those reasoning skills and gives them a sense of control over their own destinies. Pretty confronting to a lot of parents, I concede. It's not the easiest way to parent, either - the brain gymnastics are pretty constant! I know it's not for everyone.

[sloane]

i keep coming back to this thread because it's interesting to read the responses (esp from posters with older/more than one child) but also because i'm still not 100% where i stand on it all.

i guess we are all shaped by our own experiences and my parents did not smack or use something like time out/naughty spot. so, ime, this approach worked. but i'm not sure whether i was just lacking in spirit (& i am an only child) or whether the approach really worked. my mum says that she feels when i was small the tendency was to crush a child's spirit to get them to comply & now there is more freedom for a child to express themselves. so that leaves me wondering - if my child has more spirit, will i need additional measures in order to help curb undesirable behaviour.

so i'm still not at a conclusion but, at the moment, a lot also has to do with DS' personality - for example, he may push me & rather than a punishment i tell him that i know he loves mummy but this is not how we show someone we love them. he usually gets a little upset & then wants to give me a cuddle. i figure that at this point something like pushing is largely about eliciting a response and so i don't want to react too much. i have friends who automatically look to do a time out sort of thing in the same situation or in response to an 'i want tantrum' but that just doesn't sit right with me at the moment.

sorry for the ramble - kudos if you have actually read this far! i just had to try & get some of these thoughts out of my head!

[Smoke Jaguar]

I love the saying that goes "The moment you think the child least deserves a cuddle is the moment the child most needs it". I think this applies in those moments when we have been conditioned to think "He wants attention, so he's not going to get it; ignore the 'bad behaviour'".
The way I see it, and this is consistent with my experience and the outcomes I achieve from this thinking, when the child is 'acting out', we've missed some signs prior to this point that told us we needed to pay attention to something the child needed - usually some emotional attention. Let's face it, when ADULTS miss out on emotional attention there is some behavioural fallout later down the track! How do you feel when you are emotionally neglected by a partner/husband? If you told him that you wanted more time with him, or wanted a hug and he told you that just because you wanted it you weren't going to get it, and he told you this often enough, you would start to question why he thought you didn't deserve it. You would start wondering what hoops you had to jump in order to get that emotional nourishment. This is where a lot of women start buying sexy underwear, cooking creative meals, getting their hair done, thinking of lots of ways to elicit the love they want, and end up filling that gap with other 'behaviours', like over-spending on clothes, overeating (most common!), spending more time on the internet, drinking alcohol etc. They come to believe that the love they get from their partners is conditional, and some start to think of themselves as less worthy of love.
Anyway, if many adults are susceptible to this, how is a child going to process the idea that if they need some attention that isn't a good enough reason to get attention? Answer: they can't. They don't process it well at all, and will 'act out' to get attention. Instead of being punished (however you do it - time out, chair, ignoring), the cause of their attention-seeking behaviour is best sought and acknowledged so that everyone feels valued and the child will learn they don't need to go to certain lengths to get your attention
I fail to see the logic in withholding attention when a child is asking for it. What I see is the teaching of children to set up maladaptive communications for loving relationships, and the cycle continues into adult relationships, much like the one I described above, sometimes worse, sometimes better. It makes attention-giving conditional upon how much you feel like investing the emotional energy into that person, rather than on nourishing that person's spirit and making the relationship much more like its potential than a template of relationships of the past.
I think we all deserve better than we are taught to give

[fionas]

Scarily for both of us Mayaness, I probably actually agree with you and parent more closely to you than you'd think from my responses

I think where we differ is that my parenting is not based on textbooks and I don't believe it's a harder way of parenting. Treating a child with empathy, explaining, seeing things from their point of view actually comes pretty naturally to me. I'm not saying that to blow my own trumpet - I guess I just find the implication that somehow we 'need' to learn this approach from textbooks or making a conscious decision to do it that way a little unusual. But we are all products of our childhood and it sounds like we had very different childhoods Mayaness and I take my hat off to you for undoing your conditioning.

I don't remember any discipline in my childhood. I don't remember any punishments. I don't remember any raised voices and there was one smack on the legs and only one in the 18 years I lived at home. My parents are very quiet and calm people and my dad is particularly considerate. I think that empathy comes very naturally to both of them. Both my parents have no qualifications, are both blue collar workers and have read no books since school. In other words, their parenting approach also did not come from thinking, discussing or reading parenting literature.

I would say that about 90% of the time, I go down the explanation path. I have never put DD1 in timeout and never withheld attention from her BUT I have enforced consequences for bad behaviour. Last night for instance she was throwing a doll around her room that was potentially going to hit me, DP or DD2. She was asked several times to stop. By about the third time, I told her that if she kept doing it there would be no bedtime story. She carried on and it hit DP right where it hurts. There was no shouting, just an explanation that now there was no bedtime story. Of course, she wasn't happy but that was the consequence. There were still hugs and kisses and more explanations at bedtime. But no story and she understood exactly why.

[fromscratch]

I disagree. Chairs and time outs do not apply to adulthood for undesireable behaviour at all. For instance, I've had employers who have behaved very badly indeed. One of them broke equal opportunity and discrimination laws, as well as flouting OHS laws. He didn't get a chair, didn't get timed. I had to pursue him all the way into the EOC with his lawyer in tow and we had 'long-winded' discussions about what he did wrong, with a mediator. He's behaved very badly before and no-one dared take him to task until I did, and no-one stuck their neck out to support me, because in real life people get away with very undesireable behaviour. Real life as an adult is not prepared for by time outs to think about what you did wrong - most of the time you watch people be treated unfairly and then hope like hell you're not the next target, so you keep a low profile, trying to keep out of the firing line and watch power-hungry people disempower other people who are trying to make the world a better place for everyone else, and wishing you had the nerve to do the same, if you weren't so afraid of the 'consequences' to your personal circumstances.
Being afraid of punishments (fallout, retribution, demotion, redundancy, pay-cut, cut in hours, exclusion from social circle etc) is not what being a brave adult in the real world is about. I guess I decided I want my kids to negotiate their terms with the world, so I allow them to negotiate with me - the only hard and fast rules I have in our home are about firearms (we have guns on our farm), moving vehicles, animal welfare and bodies of water. Everything else, pretty much, is negotiable as it hones in those reasoning skills and gives them a sense of control over their own destinies. Pretty confronting to a lot of parents, I concede. It's not the easiest way to parent, either - the brain gymnastics are pretty constant! I know it's not for everyone.
Just had to disagree, rather emphatically, with the idea that time out, chairs, 1-2-3's etc prepare children in any way for the adult world. To me that does not have a logical flow. I am yet to see the connection between the adult world and these constructed consequences. JMO.

Noone was going to take him to task but you did. He finally learned that there are consequences to his actions. Even though it was difficult and time consuming you stood up and said "what you have done is not acceptable behaviour"
As for not being able to stand up when you see the wrong things happening to someone else is not an issue or problem for me I stand up and stick my neck out, make my oppinion heard and defend the little guy who is being hard done by, but thats me. I refuse to let a bully walk over me or anyone else in my vacinity. Worring about my own position in life or my circumstances is the furtherest thing from my mind when I see someone being bullied. May have something to do with me being rather bullied as a child and not even my mother would try to stop it. Wrong and so sad, I will not let that happen while I'm around. Stand up, stick your neck out, there are other jobs and do you really want to work in such an environment anyway? Not me. Social circle.....I don't want friends like that either there are plenty of other people out there to make friends with who will be "real friends".

But you know it's easier to turn away and not get involved in someone elses problems even though you can see they need help.

[Smoke Jaguar]

do you really want to work in such an environment anyway

I've heard this so many times - I was a union delegate and the OHS Rep. I loved my job, I loved working locally, I loved the other people I worked with. Without getting into too much detail, I was being discriminated against for the roles I had as well as my age. Yes, I did want to work there, I didn't live the atmosphere of being bullied, so I did something about it. What did 'time out' as a child teach me about this situation in the adult world? Only that unfairness follows you into adulthood. I wasn't doing the wrong thing, and I find people telling me I need to look for work elsewhere because the guy who owns the business (not a manager) decides I'm too expensive (as an over 18yo!) and too clever to be pushed around by him and won't adore him (classic case of narcissistic personality, with a trail of wreckage behind him, as my union organiser dug up!). Time out doesn't prepare you for facing your consequences of your own behaviour and they don't teach you how to deal with other people's 'bad behaviour', either. Effective and empathic communication equip kids for the real world. As an adult, I couldn't stick this man in a chair and tell him to think about his actions, hoping he'd come back remorseful, telling me I still had secure hours, no matter my age, and that he would comply with OHS law as I had pointed it out (for the sake of his liability, right after the sake of my fellow employees' safety!) according to my elected role. So, why do to kids what no-one expects them to do as adults, and no-one wants them to accept being done to them as adults? I'd rather impart useful tools of communication and relationship-building to my kids.
Time outs and 'naughty chairs' don't teach kids how to get along in an adult world, not in the least.
Fionas - I get what you're saying and agree, for the most part. If you're working to change patterns you knew as a child, then it takes more effort than someone who didn't get punished. It is still a mental leap of faith to leave that behind and explore the fresh new world of reason, intrinsic rewards, and unconditional acceptance. Rewards are about approval, and kids deserve to know they are approved of all the time, not just when they do their homework, clean their rooms, use the potty etc. So, whilst not using smacking or naughty chairs is a bit of a no-brainer for a lot of us, the rationale behind not using rewards or withdrawals of approval is trickier to grasp when you're conditioned to the carrot-on-a-stick way our world works in most places. Despite my sticking to the point that it's initially harder to jump on board the 'no punishments, no rewards' bandwagon, once you understand the rationale, it is soooo much easier to make parenting decisions. For instance, I'm horribly aware of when others around me expect me to react to DS in a certain, conventional way. The easy part is speaking with DS, the harder part is tuning out the 'chatter' and the expectation that I'll 'punish', then the palpable disapproval of those who are disappointed that I didn't belittle my child and teach him about his place in the world. It's not hard anymore, mind you - it took some getting used to in the early days, and now it's quite natural What I meant, anyway, was that if you are of the thinking that it's ok to isolate a child and that they don't deserve your considered explanations of situations, with positive language, then it WILL seem harder to parent in the way I, and many others here do. It WILL take more emotional and brain energy to wrap your head around what seems to be a very contrary concept. It will even seem counter-intuitive.
Once you 'cross over', though, there's no looking back! No way do I wish I could just stick my child on a chair, or count down or count up to achieve compliance. It takes more patience than you think you've got, and it's really quite nice to take a deep breath and focus on your child's emotional welfare and really connecting with their needs (which, by the way, is a really good way to get them out of 'attention-seeking behavour'...because they're getting their needs met!).

[Miss E]

I've ordered a copy of PET and am hoping to read it while I'm on maternity leave, because I find that the concepts behind it really resonate with me and DH and how we want to go about raising our children.

But Mayaness, I was hoping you could expand a bit more on the punishment/reward side of things and how that applies to the concept of positive reinforcement. Personally, I don't use 'punishments' as such, but I do wonder if the positive reinforcement techniques that we use would be considered reward.

For example, DS is going through (and coming out the other side I think) a stage of hitting and pushing other children. When he has hit/pushed another child I pick him up and explain that why we don't hit and use key words such as 'kind' and 'safe', and also if I can see what's caused the situation how he could deal with it differently next time. But I do also say that if he does it again, we will need to leave right away because the other children need to be safe. Does this fall in the realms of punishment?

When I see DS sharing, or helping another child I also try and acknowledge it and reinforce the behaviour by saying along the lines of 'that was very kind of you...' Or if he wipes up a spill he's made with or without me asking him to, I'll say something along the lines of 'thankyou, I really like it when you help mummy clean up, it's very kind of you'.

I guess, I'm just wondering how far the concept of reward/punishment extends. I had always thought of it as 'if you do this, you will get this' type of thing, but does it go deeper?

TIA

[fromscratch]

I find it interesting that you think that although I use the time out technique with my children that I also do not encourage kind and or conciderate behaviour. Things are not as they always seam.
Just because I didn't state directly that I DO encourage what I concider acceptable behaviour it feels you have attacked me for not following your prescribed method. What I neglected to say was that time out is our last defence as I'm sure it is for many others.

You are right about adults not being sat in the naughty chair but as adults when we do something that the law has concidered criminal (bad enough) you are punished. And if it wasn't for people like you who stood up for themselves then yes you are right they would get away with it. But you did stand up for yourself and even if the ending wasn't what you concidered ideal you still stood up and said "hay I'm not copping that" Good for you!

Each child is unique and different to it's siblings. What works for one child does not necessarily mean the same thing will work for it's sibling.
You may find over time, that your current approach may not work for both of your children.
Over the years I found this and not to mention when puberty hits, well let me say puberty is a whole other ball game. And on occation wether I like it or not the law needs to be layed out in front of that teen for their "own safety". (teen boys brains are definatly wired differently)
So what am I saying exactly. Each child is different, each child responds differently to different methods.

You should not be so negative about what works for others.
Cause one day you may have to change your parenting approach if your current approach becomes ineffective.