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Well, I'm not saying your son isn't bright nor isn't mine. wink

I did say, personally it doesn't work for him. We all have our own unique ways of parenting. With my son, if I acknowledge his fits, it turns into a battle. He does have a lot of attitude or so I think for his age. So, when we have to go somewhere I have the talk about how we need to behave because it's not appropriate and a reminder of the reward (which I'm sure it can also be viewed as a bribe by some).

The way I see it, is even I have my adult temper tantrums where I just want to scream and need some time alone. Usually, if it's gotten to the point where he is throwing a fit, it's probably best that I ignore it because of the fact I don't think I can be calm, which it's really important for me.

Of course, no set discipline system is going to work for every child. I just stated that those tactics don't work for my son, but I know they work for plenty of other children and they are very well behaved. I just know after my husband came back from deployment, it wasn't something we could use because he had a lot of fears that daddy was going to leave.

I was in no way stating your parenting style was "wrong" just it didn't work for us. I can see how it would work for you, I posted to show how it would work for us since you said you don't see how.

see i agree with this statement but i think that it is important that at this age you start teaching them to work through their emotions with their "i" statments and their words because the longer you wait to teach them these things the harder it will be to teach them i mean look at the situation im in my daughter is 4 and we have waited to teach her these things and now we have spent the last 6 months teaching her these things and half the time it dosent work but with my oldest son i started doing these things with him when he was 2 and it only toke me about three weeks of constantly reminding him to use his words and he caught on so my advice is to start early and stick to your guns or nothing will work

I actually think that Nopen IS punishing tantrum behaviour and discouraging it. She is with-holding the desired (be it thing, action, whatever) from her kid until they calm down. Thus they learn that tantrums solve nothing and that it's best to control their emotions and approach the problem in a way that WILL get it solved.


Eh, in my house, cleaning my room was something that I, as a member of the household, had to do. It wasn't a good thing worth rewarding any more than the fact that I went to school today means that I deserve a treat. I am a student, going to school is just the basic thing that I am supposed to do.

If I did something above and beyond my base chores (like, say cleaned my parents' room as well), then I would earn a treat.

But looking back, I see what a hypocrit I am. I did say that no one strategy works for every child and, if it works for you, it obviously can't be all that wrong.


It annoys me, yes. But I don't blame anyone if a small child has a tantrum (in some cases, I am extremely forgiving -- for example, I will NEVER get angry or in any way phased if a kid cries during take off or landing on a plane because I know that it can't be controlled at all).

But really, the tantrum itself usually doesn't bother me as much as how it is handled. For example, while I am all in favor of the "I will ignore you until you stop tantruming" strategy, I think it's inappropriate for parents to use that mode of discipline in, say, a movie theater when other people are trying to watch a movie. There are some behaviors that are NOT acceptable in some situations and, if that behavior is going to happen (as I know it does and will), then the behavior should be removed from the situation in which it is inappropriate. Ie: take the kid outside and ignore it there until it stops tantruming. Otherwise, you are just ruining the movie-watching experience for 20-30 other people just to prove a point to your kid.

And, as I said, I'd almost rather just sit there and listen to a toddler scream for an hour than hear a parent say something like "if stop screaming, I'll buy you a toy." Sorry, wotfan! I just can't get over that. The bribery really gets to me, lol.


I agree 100%. Fine something that works and be CONSISTANT. A child is never going to learn if X is ok with uncle Harry but not with mom, or punished with dad but ceasing the behavior is rewarded with grandma. Kids are having to build their knowledge of the world from scratch. Telling them that mrgreen is a smile one day but a frown another is only going to confuse them and make it take that much longer to learn.

No. I don't.

I was a babysitter for a long time and that was a can of worms I was not about to mess around with. Physical punishment (or really, any kind of harsh punishment) should be left to the primary caregivers. I did time outs but that was it. I wouldn't raise my voice, threaten with anything more severe then "I will let your parents know you did this," or raise my hands. I just never felt it was a babysitter's place to do something like that.

For my own children, I do not trust a babysitter to physically punish my children without going too far. Even if he/she is trustworthy and good, there is just such a fine line between acceptable punishment and abuse that I wouldn't leave it up to someone who wasn't a primary caregiver to determine where that line is.

ok so what if your babysitter was a family member would you consider it ok to have them spank your kids?

and why is that do you not trust them enough or what?

I work as a caregiver at a daycare. I would NEVER want the responsibility of spanking a child that isn't my own. If you want the consistency, tell the caregiver that is the punishment, and to tell YOU, so you can administer the spanking when you get home. Not only are you taking a risk (not everyone has the same idea of what force to use when administering a spanking) you're tossing something on the babysitter they probably don't want.

As for when I have my own kids, I've learned firsthand that the same things don't work on all kids, but, there are some things I've found don't seem to work on ANY of the kids. There's probably exceptions out there, but these seem to be pretty basic.

1. Giving in to tantrums/rewarding bad behavior. I think a reward for a normal, good behavior is okay, it's a pretty strong reinforcement, as long as it doesn't happen ALL the time. But, you can't bribe a child out of a tantrum, at least an "asking for something" tantrum. You can redirect one in a "Mommy! He stole that from me!" type tantrum, though. In fact, that seems to be the best thing for the age group I work with (k-5).

2. Not following through. You give a "last warning", make that the real last warning. If you don't, your child learns that you don't mean what you say, and will run right over you. At where I work, you can TELL, at least when they start at the daycare, which childeren are from homes that discipline their children, and which let their children run right over them.

Those two are the big basics. There are other, idealistic ideas I have, but... they are idealistic. And, like I said, I don't have children, those two come from experience working in childcare.