Kneeling punishments for children?

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Never heard of it. Does it hurt?

I don’t think I would use it. It sounds messy and very counter-productive.
 
Heard of it, wouldn’t try it. Why waste food and create mess when there are faster alternatives?
 
Pushups are better. Better than timeouts even. For the ones too young to do a pushup, a plank-type or downward-dog “face down” will get their attention and energy.
 
Rence said:
Pushups are better. Better than timeouts even. For the ones too young to do a pushup, a plank-type or downward-dog “face down” will get their attention and energy.
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I wouldn’t want to turn exercise into a punishment, though. Time-outs sound more sensible to me.

I think the idea of kneeling on rice sounds like it will lead to resentment in the child, much more than other options would.
 
I have never heard of that. I agree with the consensus that it doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. It’s hard enough getting the kids to kneel at Mass without having them associating kneeling with punishment.
 
I’ve heard of using a small wooden box with rice, rocks, even pencils in it for the child being punished to kneel on. This was a common practice in the parochial school my father attended.

I prefer a nice corner to stand in, myself. My in the corner rules include no talking, no turning around, no leaning, no fidgeting and breaking those rules results in additional time in the corner.

I am also a fan of additional chores as punishment. My daughter was once really rotten for a few days. I happened to have a close friend who was pregnant and high risk. As punishment my girl was grounded for 2 weeks and had to go over to my friends house with me. While I chatted with my friend, my daughter was forbidden to talk to or play with my friends kids. She had to poop scoop the yard, pull a lot of weeds, take out the trash, and fold a mountain of laundry. Took her a few hours of hard labor under our watchful eyes, but her whole attitude changed.
 
Kamaduck said:
Never heard of it. Does it hurt?
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It hurts - a lot! I used to have a skirt with a row of small beads sewn near the hem. In trying to get at something on a low shelf I accidently knelt on a bead. The amount of pain was surprising.

A child, being smaller, probably wouldn’t have as much pain. But I’m not a proponent of using pain to punish children. I think it’s barbaric.
 
No, I would never want to subject kids to that! :eek: They would probably develop a bad attitude towards kneeling at Mass.

As for myself, if the kids are scrapping and I want them to cut it out, I make them sit on a bench together (silently) until they can think of a few nice things to say about the other person (depending on how rough the fight was, it could be anywhere from 1 to 4 nice things that they need to come up with).
It seems to work…
 
Why, when there’s hot coals? 😃 Seriously, this just sounds harsh and pretty mean spirited. A swat on the butt with a spoon is one thing but prolonged pain as a punishment seems cruel and unusual.
 
Totally against it.

The goal with consequences for actions is not to physically hurt children, but to teach a lesson. Some would argue that this would teach a lesson, but I personally argue that prolonged exposure to pain is cruel and unnecessary.
 
Doesn’t sound bad at all to me.

More comfortable than kneeling on marble I would think.

A child that is unable to bear some level of pain and mortification will not have the necessary virtue of fortitude. That would be a great evil.
 
That sounds cruel. I am all for a couple swats on the bottom. I’m not for torturing.
 
The photo posted above is cruel and it makes me cringe just to see it. I do not come to CAF to see images of abused children. Please take the photo down.
 
Discipline methods should be designed to encourage a child to consider what they did wrong, and develop self discipline in the long term.

Methods that achieve this goal involve there being understood repercussions for disciplinary infringements, and delayed rewards for good behaviour, and good work.

The structured method of Time Out, is one my wife have found to be very good with small children (from while still on the breast!!!)
Initially: discouraging biting on the nipple:
1st bite: a loud “Outch! No!”
2nd Bite: Instantly being taken off the breast and placed on the bed / sofa / floor for 30 seconds.

The baby learns very quickly not to bite.

Once they can sit: age appropriate behaviour problems receive a warning followed by being placed on “The Naughty Step / chair / corner” for 1 minute per year of life.
They get told why they are going.
Once the time is up they are asked to explain why they were punished. They apologise. Then you hugh & make up and move on… infringement is then forgotten.

My oldest is now 3. We also have a rewards chart. with stars awarded for various behaviours we are trying to encourage. Receiving more than 3 “Time Outs” in a day means the loss of a star for “Good Behaviour”.

Stars are collected for 1 week or more to win some prize.
As he gets older the time periods will slowly increase.

We have tried other techniques, like smacking, but find that the strong structure of the Time Out is the best at discouraging the wrong behaviour and promoting the right ones.

I don’t have experience with older kids yet… but this seems to work with most or all pre-teens.
 
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