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Julia Ogden: How long do you make a punishment last?
HERE is an interesting question for you . . . how long do you make a punishment last? Minutes? Hours? Aweek?
HERE is an interesting question for you . . . how long do you make a punishment last? Minutes? Hours? Aweek?Most of us would say it depends what the misdemeanour was, but let's be honest, how many of us have children so naughty they need to be punished for longer than a few minutes?
I ask this question because I have always believed that, wherever possible, a parent should discipline their child as soon as they have been naughty, rather than threaten them with the words "wait until you get home". Of course, I appreciate this is not always possible, but I never like to think that anyone in my family has gone to bed upset after an argument.
Unfortunately, this ideal is becoming increasingly hard to achieve in our house, because the biggest "upsets" we have had with our six-year-old son occur at night.
Just last week, I asked Samuel to go upstairs and get ready for bed, and he immediately started shouting about how he wanted to watch another episode of a cartoon on TV. When I said "no", it was time for bed, he told me he hated me and stomped up the stairs. My husband then followed him up to tell him off for being rude, and to our absolute horror, Samuel spat in his face.Consequently, he went to bed with no stories, and no goodnight kiss from mummy
In the morning, however, he came into our room very contrite, so we had a group hug, and told him the matter was over (re-iterating that he must never spit in someone's face again.)
Then today, Samuel was so naughty I left him at the school gates in tears, and I feel awful.
What did he do? He told me he wished I would die, that's what.
Yes, I know. Lovely isn't he? (Actually, he is lovely, and I know he didn't mean it, but he still needs to be punished for saying something so horrible, doesn't he?)
So, I delivered him to his teacher at the school gate, and where normally I would go into the cloakroom with him and give him a hug, today, I just walked away . . . listening to his screams.
Of course, it has completely ruined my day. I only hope this punishment will make him think twice about saying something like this again. And I know that sometimes, it is important we to teach our children that saying "sorry" is not always enough.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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