Who's punishing whom?

Discipline has taken a look into the castle and run screaming in the opposite direction!


Yesterday Son was been acting up and so Princess Mummy had to put the punishment hat on. Princess Mummy and Husband went through a sore throat phase with all the shouting and so we imposed the time-out mat philosophy. A minute for every year of Son’s life. In general this works well. We have a very sweet mat with a picure of Noddy which we keep just outside the living room door. The time out is to give Son a chance to think about why he was naughty and how he can avoid doing it next time. At least in theory. Son also loses the activity he was doing when he is sent on time out.

So we had an incident of swearing which Son only does for attention. Son was told that we don’t use dirty words in the castle and told to go on time out where he could think about why those words weren’t nice ones and which words he could use instead. The TV was also turned off. At the end of the time out, I invited Son to come in and make friends. At this point we normally recap the “crime,” agree why it’s naughty and make friends. Yesterday the conversation went along the lines of:

PM: would you like to come in now?
S: Can I have beebies?
PM: no love, I turned it off when you were naughty.
S: Back on now?
PM: no. It’s staying off for a while.
S: Not coming in til beebies on.

When I had stopped laughing, I advised Son he could stay out there if he wanted but I wasn’t putting the TV back on.

Despite an additional refusal, his defiance lasted a further 30 seconds.
Score Princess Mummy 1- Son 0