Who here has NEVER punished?

[DevaMajka]

I was just thinking recently, that my ds has never been punished (he's only 17 mos, but still...I know parents with kids his age already doing time outs ). I'm super lucky that I found gd/positive parenting when he was just 6 mos!
The longer we go without punishing, the less sense punishing makes to me. Like the statement: how do you expect that making children feel bad will make them be good?
I'm talking about intentional punishing, with the intention of making a child "behave". I'm not talking about unintentional punishing- like the couple times ds was extra-fussy all day, and I eventually had to turn around and ignore him for about 30 seconds to recollect myself (basically, for my own sanity). But even stuff like that hasn't happened much at all.

I know that people would say that he's young and "just you wait" and that at some age punishing is inevitable. But I have a feeling that it's not. Any experience there? I know there are some here!

[Rainbow Brite]

My dd is almost 17 months and we do not punish. I do not believe in punishing. I think that discipline is teaching. I even dislike the new fad natural consequences, b/c it seems like many people just apply concequences to the child, then say it's a natural consequence

[mamachandi]

I didn't have to discipline my dd until she was almost 3 years old (when her little sister arrived ) who knows how long it would hav been?

[ceilydhmama]

Dd is 4 and we have never used timeouts or other punishments. I have yelled at her - and told her why while I was yelling
We have guided and respectfully explained limits to her from day one. She drives me batty some times and I am not perfect in my responses (ie when she kicked my camera off my desk while I was downloading work pictures that had been hard to get - I yelled and asked her to find something else to do while I calmed down) but I love our non-punishing relationship with her.

She is confident that her opinions are valid and she respects when we say "no" because we can *usually* back it up with good reasons.

[johub]

I am an "almost never" type punisher and as I have 4 children I have punished.
However my 2 youngest are 26 months and have never been punished.
My ds1 has had "time out" a handful of times but the very first time he was 2 1/2. This isnt something that happens every day or every week (or even every month).
Even though I have not completely eliminated the whole concept of punishment 100% from my toolbox. I really think it is rediculous to punish a child who simply doesnt know better! Better to teach them than punish them.
Joline

[allgirls]

ditto what Johub said...but I wish I didn't have to, unfortunately my 15 year old has endangered her life with some of her decisions and I have had to get pretty tough with her. Fortunately she seems to be moving out of this stage and is making better choices but she had a rough year last year.

[maya44]

Hmmm, well I guess it what you mean by "punish." If you mean impose a non-related consequence....then no.

But if you mean, impose a consequence that is not natural but is logical, then yes, occassionally. I do this only to protect the person or property of another.

So if my child was throwing a ball around at someone else's home, and I had told her that she needed to stop because something could break, and she continued to do so, then I might take the ball away. I would probably say something like "Let me know when you think you can have the ball without throwing it at stuff."

At my own house I would probably be more tolerant of this behavior. If something broke it might be a learning experience. But I feel an obligation that their learning does not come at someone else's expense and thus would take the ball away at someone else's home.

[abac]

Maya, I wouldn't consider that punishment. That is protecting someone else's property and it just happens to involve taking something away from your child.

My ds is 20 months and has never been punished. I can't imagine what I would ever punish him for (up to this point.) He's just a little baby, learning and having fun. He's never done anything that would warrent a punishment.

We went to visit friends with a dd the same age as ds, and the mom constantly told her dd to share, don't be mean, etc. and put her in time out twice in 15 minutes for not sharing her toys. Some people have VERY different expectations, I guess.

[kchoffmann]

At 2 1/2 years we have never punished. For the most part, my DS usually listens to me when I tell him he needs to do something or stop something. Maybe I'm lucky? When he doesn't he's either too preoccupied to hear me, or he's interested in the "no" response and wants to hear it again or thinks it's funny, or he forgets that he's just been told not to. Or, sometimes, he's tired or not feeling well. None of these times when he doesn't listen or do what I want seem like reasonable instances to me to punish. In fact, again, maybe I'm lucky in that I don't see my DS as intentionally trying to do "bad" things, but I can't imagine what would make someone punish a kid this young. As far as I can see, anything he does is developmentally appropriate. He's just trying to get a hang of how the world works and how much he can control what it does. That seems healthy to me.

Discipline, however, is another story. He gets discipline every day and has since he was younger in the form of clear, consistent boundaries. I make clear to him what I will and won't do and what I expect him to do and not do. The result is that while he might express some frustration when he can't do something, he doesn't melt down about it. He just expresses his feelings about it and moves on. And I acknowledge these feelings, but hold fast to my boundaries about it. I like to think this has something to do with why I don't "have to" punish. Then again, I have another baby on the way who may make me eat my words.

[freestyler]

Rainbow Brite---is the new fad called natural consequences like the new fad called natural childbirth? Natural consequences have been around as long as there have been living things roaming the earth. Small dinosaur wanders in front of large T-Rex, gets eaten: natural consequence. This is as old as the hills, literally.

[alicia622]

Me, but G is only 4 months old so...

I have worked with children for years and have helped develop behavior plans and taught parents some techniques (such as 123 Magic and time outs). I have given time outs before, but never found them to be that effective and it always seemed primitive to me, but for the families I worked with- a definite improvement from what they were doing.

I find that listening to children/reflecting/and setting clear expectations and not giving in to their pleas for more, more, more as well as natural/logical consequences brought me the most success.

I worked with a boy who had a hx. of stealing so when we went into stores, I didn't give him much breathing room. I was respectful about it and didn't remind him I would do it or anything like that, just didn't let him out of my sight. Once in a while he would get annoyed with me about it, but he understood why I was doing it.

[aira]

No punishing here...

[AntoninBeGonin]

Antonin is 16 months so we have never punished. Loving discipline is all we do, and all we ever plan to do.

~Nay

[lisac77]

We also don't punish, but we do use a few instances of consequences. For example, if we are on the way out the door and DS chucks something out of anger, more often than not it will be left where it falls until we get home. Then he gets it back right away. I have also removed him from social situations if he is being agressive, but not in a mean way, and I stay with him. At that point it's more about others' safety than his comfort level.

I remember one time recently where I almost made an arbitrary punishment, but stopped myself when I realized how stupid it was. I agree that there's no sense in trying to force a child to be obdient by making them feel bad. It seems so counter intuitive.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

I don't punish (DC is 4) but, like some of you here, there are definitely times when I do things that could be considered a "logical consequence", which I think can be defined as punishment depending on your perspective. I'm on the fence about it only because, for me, a logical consequence and a punishment are really easy to mix up.

Definitely no random consequences...yet and I'd like to keep it that way.

[oldcrunchymom]

My kids are 10 and 7. A few times when they have been out of control angry, I have sent them in their rooms to calm down. I'd say this has happened less than 10 times in their lives. But, when it happens, I feel it is necessary for me to maintain my sanity (I can't go into another room myself because their rooms are the only "rooms" in the house). Otherwise I end up screaming too and it's not pretty.

Other than that they haven't been punished. My mother never "grounded" us or took away "privileges" because she didn't believe in that sort of punishment, and it seemed to serve me and my brother well. So I'm hoping the same thing works for my kids.

[MamaE]

Originally Posted by IdentityCrisisMama

I'm on the fence about it only because, for me, a logical consequence and a punishment are really easy to mix up.

I also have a hard time deciding what's a logical consequence and what isn't. At 33 months, we've had to use some consequences, though I am not always sure if they are natural - i.e, if you don't brush your teeth, no books at bedtime. I'm willing to do quite a bit of negotiation, but there are some things that I do not negotiate - the car seat and toothbrushing are 2 that come to mind. There has to be a way to get a child to do certain things which are non-negotiable and removal of priveleges such as books or a toy she is holding does the trick. Is this natural/logical? I don't know the answer to that.

My ideal is gentle guidance and lots of explanation. The explanation part usually comes easily b/c I'm naturally very chatty w/ DD and I've been explaining things to her since she was born. OTOH, my response to behavior I find annoying is not always as calm and collected as I would like. But, so far, I have not spanked, done time-out or used any other random punishment (at least not that I classify as random). I also don't yell, though I have raised my voice, and I typically tell DD in no uncertain terms when I am very angry! I tend to think DD gets my displeasure from my tone or my actions and that's punishment or discipline enough, at least at this age. Talk to me in another year or 2, though. This job keeps changing on me and just as I think I've got it mastered, the stakes get raised.

[Dragonfly]

I've punished, despite having found GD before ds was born. The minimal amount of times I've punished have invariably been those when I've been completely stressed out and in reactive mode. Fortunately, those times became fewer and further between as I started internalizing GD more and we've now been punishment free for a long, long time. It's not my default reaction anymore. I'm so, so happy about that.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Originally Posted by MamaE

I also have a hard time deciding what's a logical consequence and what isn't. At 33 months, we've had to use some consequences, though I am not always sure if they are natural - i.e, if you don't brush your teeth, no books at bedtime. I'm willing to do quite a bit of negotiation, but there are some things that I do not negotiate - the car seat and tooth brushing are 2 that come to mind. There has to be a way to get a child to do certain things which are non-negotiable and removal of privileges such as books or a toy she is holding does the trick. Is this natural/logical? I don't know the answer to that.

No books for not brushing teeth is definitely not a natural consequence. The natural consequence of not brushing teeth is food on your teeth, maybe bad breath or cavities some day. I'm not even sure if it's logical but I'm sure it could be "spun" that way. This is my thing with logical consequences (a consequence imposed by the parent, which relates to the behavior ~ this is as I understand it) ~ they are too dependent on being "spun" in my experience. Yes, we have some that are very clear like removing a chile that is about to bite another and etc. But, others, require so much semantical stuff in order to not be or seem like a punishment that I get suspicious.

[writermommy]

We don't do punishments for the most part. I have occassionally taken things away, if needed. An example: oldest dd is 7, the other day she was writing on my 3 yo dd with a marker. She wrote the little one's name across her back and proceeded to draw pictures on her. I asked her to stop and she kept doing it. I took the marker and told her she could have it back when she was ready to write on paper. She is 7 and knows not to write on people. I don't really see this as a punishment, she wasn't sent to her room, time out, etc. She also helped me wash her sister in the tub. She wanted to do this; she wasn't made to or even asked to help. Although, if I had asked her to do it, this would have been a natural consequence.

My 3 yo went through a writing on all the walls of the house thing about 6 months ago, so she couldn't draw unless dh or I were sittting with her. It was a major problem. DH was sick of scrubbing the walls. I figured taking away the crayons was better than listening to daddy yell after work. She wasn't punished or yelled at. She just needed to wait to color until one of us could sit with her. Thankfully, that stage has passed.