'Disciplining' 3 year olds

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Egypt3

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My son and daughter-in-law are very strict with their little girl. They take her to her room for very minor infractions: not covering her mouth while coughing, interrupting daddy, playing with her food, not putting all her things away, not saying ‘thank you’, or just simply getting stubborn and refusing to comply with their ‘rules’. And she is not allowed to come out of the room until she complies; by then she is completely hysterical and ‘unmanageable’. One day my daughter-in-law was in the little one’s room with her, not letting her out,( or off the hook) while this child cried uncontrollably for FIVE hours!
My granddaughter (at that time only 3yrs, 4 months) cried and talked in her sleep every night.
I need HELP for my son and his wife how to see a better way of imparting manners and positive behavior in the little one.
IS THERE A CATHOLIC REFERENCE THAT DEALS SPECIFICALLY with parenting this age group?
would appreciate any imput
 
Dr. Ray Guarendi’s books on parenting, such as Discipline That Lasts A Lifetime.

drray.com/

Also, the Raise Happy Children… series by Mary Ann Budnik
 
Egypt3 said:
My son and daughter-in-law are very strict with their little girl. They take her to her room for very minor infractions: not covering her mouth while coughing, interrupting daddy, playing with her food, not putting all her things away, not saying ‘thank you’, or just simply getting stubborn and refusing to comply with their ‘rules’. And she is not allowed to come out of the room until she complies; by then she is completely hysterical and ‘unmanageable’. One day my daughter-in-law was in the little one’s room with her, not letting her out,( or off the hook) while this child cried uncontrollably for FIVE hours!
My granddaughter (at that time only 3yrs, 4 months) cried and talked in her sleep every night.
I need HELP for my son and his wife how to see a better way of imparting manners and positive behavior in the little one.
IS THERE A CATHOLIC REFERENCE THAT DEALS SPECIFICALLY with parenting this age group?
would appreciate any imput
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Poor baby. While I don’t have babies of my own, I am a pre-k teacher and I think that this is horrible. Because I work with that age group, I know that they are capable of having manners and cleaning up after themselves. It is perfectly fine to have rules for that age. It is the consequences that trouble me. A child that age should never be put in timeout for hours. A good rule of thumb for timeout is 1 minute per year old. So for a 3 year old 3 minutes of time out. You should also explain why they are in timeout and answer any questions that the child has after timeout. A child that age will not understand why she is in trouble for that long. 5 minutes for them is a long time, I couldn’t imagine how 5 hours could be to them. If this couple was in my family, I would most definitely have something to say to them.
 
Egypt3 said:
My son and daughter-in-law are very strict with their little girl. They take her to her room for very minor infractions: not covering her mouth while coughing, interrupting daddy, playing with her food, not putting all her things away, not saying ‘thank you’, or just simply getting stubborn and refusing to comply with their ‘rules’. And she is not allowed to come out of the room until she complies; by then she is completely hysterical and ‘unmanageable’. One day my daughter-in-law was in the little one’s room with her, not letting her out,( or off the hook) while this child cried uncontrollably for FIVE hours!
My granddaughter (at that time only 3yrs, 4 months) cried and talked in her sleep every night.
I need HELP for my son and his wife how to see a better way of imparting manners and positive behavior in the little one.
IS THERE A CATHOLIC REFERENCE THAT DEALS SPECIFICALLY with parenting this age group?
would appreciate any imput
Click to expand...
I’m an older lady (62) who raised 5 kids and am now a grandma and even a great-grandma. I can relate to you as I’ve seen some strange punishments from one of my own adult kids directed at his kids. Sometimes I’d think “What in heaven’s name! I never did that to you when you were young!” Having said that, I never found that reasoning with him as his parents did much good. Today’s parents march to a completely different drummer where “time-outs” are an “IN” form of discipline and a good old fashioned pop on the butt is considered to be abusive. I totally agree with you–to put a 3 year old in a time out for 5 hours is beyond reason. A child that age has an attention span of less than 15 minutes. Moreover, when she is punished as heavy-handedly for forgetting to cover her mouth when she coughs as she is for coloring on a wall (for instance), she simply internalizes that everything she does is wrong or bad.

Is it possible that maybe they are harder on their child around you? I only say this because I think that one of my kids was that way. It was as if he felt that if his child acted up in Grandma’s presence that Grandma would think he was a sorry parent. This was ridiculous of course.

I did once tell another of my kids something that seemed to sink in (there’s just no talking to the one I refer to above). I told her that I had raised her and the rest of my kids the way my folks raised me–right or wrong. She replied “Well, we were pretty good weren’t we? You could take us out in public or to church without too much trouble, right?” I then told her that I agreed–that her grandpa (an old first generation German) had told me long ago, that disciplining a 3 year old was a little like disciplining a mule. You can successfully teach a mule by arguing with it, by denying treats or with time outs–but FIRST you have to get the mule’s attention! To get the mule’s attention however, you must hit it over the head with a fence post! This was my Dad’s way of saying that a swift corporal punishment such as a swift pop on the butt or a hand slap was usually a better way of correcting a 3 year old–or any young kid–than any psychological punishment out there. Obviously, you don’t spank for things like coughing without covering the mouth. But, with 5 kids–I always joked that I had to make them mind as my husband and I were outnumbered over 2-1. A good spank on the bottom, reserved for when you really mean business was always in the back of my kids minds–they KNEW that when I looked at them in a certain way and said “I mean it–stop NOW!” that they best listen or else. 4 of my 5 kids use that same approach today. 1 of my kids is a total nut-job as a parent. There’s a huge difference in my grandkids, in how much they listen to their parents as teens (which many of mine are by now) and in the level of resentment they show their parents.👍
 
This isn’t even an appropriate use of “time out” as a punishment. You don’t stay in the room with a child who is in time out and talk to them. And a normal amount of time for a three year old is closer to five minutes. Most of those infactions are situations that call for redirection and reminding, not punishment. Any book on disciplining would have better advice than the way they are handleing it.
 
Allegra said:
This isn’t even an appropriate use of “time out” as a punishment. You don’t stay in the room with a child who is in time out and talk to them. And a normal amount of time for a three year old is closer to five minutes. Most of those infactions are situations that call for redirection and reminding, not punishment. Any book on disciplining would have better advice than the way they are handleing it.
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I totally agree with you Allegra that the time out thing they use is more like a jail sentence. But from experience I’d be willing to bet that the kid-parents don’t see it that way and that Grandma is going to get nowhere pointing it out to them. A sibling or friend MIGHT have a better run of luck at it!
 
Thank you, dear Starrsmother, I totally agree with you about the methods of correction. I did tell my daughter-in-law that an little smack on the tush for a child of this age makes more sense, and is something that (in my opinion) the child understands instinctly, better than these other punishments, in which the child is so overpowered and so deprived of personal control and choice. Even God respects our wills. To try to ‘break’ a child’s will is so wrong. And for what? minor infractions of rules of manners?
My daughter-in-law is totally opposed to the ‘corporal’ punishment approach. I believe she is doing this out of a compulsion to repeat strategies she experienced in her own childhood (her mother seems to think we have a duty to break our children’s wills).
So, I need a lot of prayers here. And, yes, I will try to ‘talk’ with her and my son when I visit them, at the end of Sept. for two weeks. God bless
 
Here’s a wonderful book by Greg Popcak who is on Ave Maria Radio - Parenting With Grace.

publishersweekly.com/978-0-87973-730-6

The parents are getting into an intense, overemotional power struggle with this child, everyone’s getting all upset over such small things. The parents need to chill, they need to respect the child as a gift from God, and the child needs to respect her parents - but she needs to be gently guided and given chances to learn and not put in a position like, well, it’s like the parents are taking a sledgehammer to an ant on some of those minor points. :rolleyes:
 
O God the Father of mankind, who hast given unto me these my children, and committed them to my charge to bring them up for Thee, and to prepare them for eternal life: help me with Thy heavenly grace, that I may be able to fulfil this most sacred duty and stewardship. Teach me both what to give and what to withhold; when to reprove and when to forbear; make me to be gentle, yet firm; considerate and watchful; and deliver me equally from the weakness of indulgence, and the excess of severity; and grant that, both by word and example, I may be careful to lead them in the ways of wisdom and true piety, so that at last I may, with them, be admitted to the unspeakable joys of our true home in heaven, in the company of the blessed Angels and Saints. Amen.

Sometimes MIL’s tend to over dramatize how they view the raising of grandchildren to elevate their honor and worthiness. Examine your conscience because you are boarder line slandering your DIL; in your thoughts and in your words. However, if your conscience is clear and you are confident that there is abuse, please contact social services as an advocate for your grandchildren.
 
Poor little girl. The house sounds a bit chaotic and unhappy for everyone. We don’t use much corporal punishment in our house either, but I do agree with the concept of getting the child’s attention and then being quickly done. There is nothing more pointless (or sometimes irresistible) than arguing with a three year old. How on earth they hung in there for five hours, I can not imagine. Nor can I imagine why. The one minute per year of age is a pretty well known concept. Yelling and crying and carrying on is 100% counterproductive.

It is so much more effective to simple teach by doing, by repetition and staying calm. Yes it is incredibly dull and the three year old will test your patience a hundred times a day, but aren’t we the adults here? We cough, we cover our mouths so she sees it. She coughs, we remind her. She doesn’t do it, we help her remember. There shouldn’t be punishment for learning something new, IMHO. She is three!

There are dozens of books on the subject, but unless your daughter in law has the personality of wanting to actually have a peacful home, instead of wanting to be the domineering personality, they will be of little help. Praying for them all.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Here’s a wonderful book by Greg Popcak who is on Ave Maria Radio - Parenting With Grace.

publishersweekly.com/978-0-87973-730-6

The parents are getting into an intense, overemotional power struggle with this child, everyone’s getting all upset over such small things. The parents need to chill, they need to respect the child as a gift from God, and the child needs to respect her parents - but she needs to be gently guided and given chances to learn and not put in a position like, well, it’s like the parents are taking a sledgehammer to an ant on some of those minor points. :rolleyes:
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Agree!
 
Five hours? For a three year old? This is 2013, not 1913. Even in 1913, this would have been unthinkable for many if not most parents, but now we have child protective services, and they would not consider shutting a 3 year old up alone for 5 hours as acceptable parenting practice. Yet I know from my own husband and his mom that even with the best of relationship, a grandparent’s advice is often seen as being too easy on the grandchild. Adult children remember their parents as being far stricter than they were, grandparents are more realistic after finishing than they were when they started parenting, and so the “memory difference” can be very wide concerning how to discipline. Worse yet, there are so many parents out there who seem as if do not discipline at all (in public, anyway) that many people go into parenting with a very strong “my kid will never be that way in public” resolution. That is a recipe for disaster, and at the times you talk to your son about this, reminding him that no parent ever punished a child into perfection, let alone perfection and a trusting relationship in which everyone’s mental health is preserved. Besides, if he doesn’t get her to follow willingly as a 3 year old, instead of making her behavior the field of battle in a war of wills, he had better be prepared to batten down the hatches when she hits her teen years.

I will tell you what my mother-in-law did. When she thought we were being too strict and we would not take the small admonition that she felt duty-bound to offer and after some minutes in which the situation did not resolve, she’d leave the room. She made it clear that since it wasn’t her place to undermine us about our methods, she still didn’t have to stick around and watch. It’s kind of irritating, but when your mother’s or MIL’s behavior says “I won’t let myself be forced to watch this”, it makes you stop and think. Maybe you’re too stubborn to give in when she’s there, but it makes you think.

The other thing I would suggest is that lots of times a parent has the ability to give the child a way to ramp down by offering a truce. With our kids, I’d say, “Hey, how would you like a hug and a start over?” No punishment, just go over the rule and get back to life. When the child has gotten so upset that she’s lost all self-control, that can be a very good way to go, because very often that is what she wants more than anything.
 
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EasterJoy:
Five hours? For a three year old? This is 2013, not 1913. Even in 1913, this would have been unthinkable for many if not most parents, but now we have child protective services, and they would not consider shutting a 3 year old up alone for 5 hours as acceptable parenting practice…
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Ha, I can assure you in 1913, no parents would have taken that much of their own time to discipline a child. A quick swat would have sufficed for most families.
Young parents are often a little too overbearing in their desire to raise the “perfect” child. Let kids be kids, set a few ground rules, make sure those are followed, and enjoy your children. It helps once you have 3 or 4, you start to realize that being overly strict does not really help.
 
tafan said:
Ha, I can assure you in 1913, no parents would have taken that much of their own time to discipline a child. A quick swat would have sufficed for most families.
Young parents are often a little too overbearing in their desire to raise the “perfect” child. Let kids be kids, set a few ground rules, make sure those are followed, and enjoy your children. It helps once you have 3 or 4, you start to realize that being overly strict does not really help.
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I think there were a few in 1913 who would have shut a wayward child in a room for an extended period of time in the mistaken idea that a child is just a little adult who can be imprisoned into rehabilitation. Still, I agree: you can’t punish a child into perfection, just as you can’t praise or guide or method or genetically determine or positively reinforce or helicopter surveillance a child into perfection, and it only causes harm to try. Besides, yes–Life is Too Short!!
 
EasterJoy said:
I think there were a few in 1913 who would have shut a wayward child in a room for an extended period of time in the mistaken idea that a child is just a little adult who can be imprisoned into rehabilitation. Still, I agree: you can’t punish a child into perfection, just as you can’t praise or guide or method or genetically determine or positively reinforce or helicopter surveillance a child into perfection, and it only causes harm to try. Besides, yes–Life is Too Short!!
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Oh yes, there were some who would have shut a child up in a room, but to spend that much time with the child in the room? That is what I was referring to.
 
tafan said:
Oh yes, there were some who would have shut a child up in a room, but to spend that much time with the child in the room? That is what I was referring to.
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I misread the OPs description, then? The mother was in there having a battle of wills with a three year old for 5 hours? Oh, wow. That is such utter lunacy, it beggars belief.

That little girl has some spunk. Those parents had better figure out how to work with her, and not try to break her. No one in their right minds tries to form a strong-willed child by brute force of will. If they do, they’re going to find out the hard way what kind of lunacy can come out of a big reservoir of built-up resentment. Wow, if either of the parents are half as strong-willed as this child, this could get* so *bad!! 😦
 
Hi, this is the Grandma with the very strict son and daughter-in-law. Thank you all, for the advise, prayers and sharing. It was an awful afternoon, the afternoon when my little granddaughter was ‘disciplined’ for five hours, by her mom, who, while holding the baby (they have a baby, a second daughter), was trying to extract an apology, or promise of better behavior next time, while the little girl (3yrs 4mos) was hysterical with sobs. All this, in the little child’s room, and in the bathroom where the crying fits continued. The other crazy thing was that I, just sat in the dining room, ‘waiting’ for this to come to a resolution. I guess I was afraid to interfere in my daughter-in-law domain, afraid that I would be locked-out from a next visit. When my son came home and joined the mother to administer more justice to the little one, I couldn’t stand it any longer and called out from the hall, his name and said “this is cruel”. At that point my son calmly told me to leave the house. So, I took my rosary beads and proceeded to walk around the house, saying the Rosary. But I was quite shook up.
This is not a one time deal. My little granddaughter would wake up with nightmares every night last year when she was only two. This time when I stayed with her in her room, she would wake up crying and talking in her sleep, in fear. She would go to her parents bed and continue to sleep there with them (and the baby). At least they let her stay with them in their bed for the rest of the night.
Please continue to pray for my little sweetheart. I did get the parents Dr. G. Popcak’s Parenting with Grace. And please pray for me, because it’s very difficult to be restrained, and let God, and say only what is helpful. God bless,
 
There some things you may wish to discreetly point out to your son telling what you see is greatly grieving you. Let him know you are not trying to butt in or undermine his parental authority, but felt compelled to quietly talk to him about this.

First a 3 year old has not reached the age of reason (they are not rational) and heavy handed punishment is cruel because they don’t have the mental capacity understand why they are being so harshly punished. It is one thing to send a child to their room for few hours if they are unmanageable, but another to use this as a typical punishment for some minor infraction. There is an immense difference between willful disobedience and forgetfulness. The first needs punishment, the latter needs correction and guidance.

Second you will create a mind set where the child will think that any decision they make will be met with punishment. If you want to create a child that is going to be fearful of decision making and be indecisive in life, continue in this manner.

Thirdly, you will foster in the child’s mind as they mature a hatred and complete distrust of legitimate authority. In the present state of our culture that should be the last thing dutiful parents should do.

Parents should not make their children’s childhood hellish, it will come back to haunt them.
 
Egypt3 said:
…I guess I was afraid to interfere in my daughter-in-law domain, afraid that I would be locked-out from a next visit. When my son came home and joined the mother to administer more justice to the little one, I couldn’t stand it any longer and called out from the hall, his name and said “this is cruel”. At that point my son calmly told me to leave the house. So, I took my rosary beads and proceeded to walk around the house, saying the Rosary. But I was quite shook up…
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Don’t think that because he asked you to leave that you did the wrong thing. You did the right thing. The chances are that he probably did the right thing by having you leave while he dealt with his wife, too, because it would have been much harder to be blunt with her with you there watching. No matter what, though, you can’t give tacit approval to this kind of thing. You have to draw a line where you won’t take it. If that means you say “I can’t watch this, I have to leave”, then so be it.
 
EasterJoy said:
Don’t think that because he asked you to leave that you did the wrong thing. You did the right thing. The chances are that he probably did the right thing by having you leave while he dealt with his wife, too, because it would have been much harder to be blunt with her with you there watching. No matter what, though, you can’t give tacit approval to this kind of thing. You have to draw a line where you won’t take it. If that means you say “I can’t watch this, I have to leave”, then so be it.
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All of these are good ideas, but as I mentioned early on, I have a son that is a lot like the couple the thread originator describes. Nothing happens in a vaccum, and I’d be willing to bet that the daughter-in-law is actually supported in her punishments by the son. One thing I’d suggest is that the Grandma try really hard to form a relationship with this child. Attempt to get permission from the parents to have the child spend the night frequently or go places with her Grandma. Then when the little girl is older, she will have an advocate in the grandma–and she will probably need one badly.
 
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