At what age did your kids start getting things taken away as a punishment? Toys, tv time, friends being over, certain activities they were looking forward to doing.

DH thought I was being mean when DD threw the tantrum of all tantrums and her punishment was that she couldn't decorate Christmas cookies with her neighbor friends. My neighbor thought I was over reacting too but to me it seemed to be a fair punishment since she was really looking forward to doing it. DH thinks she's too young for anything besides time out and spankings. I'm trying to eliminate spankings by bringing in things being taken away for bad behavior.

By Enchens on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 04:12 pm:

My ds is only a month younger that your dd and my husband has already started to take things away as punishment for bad behavior. His thing is sports stuff. If he misbehaves, he can't play with the new basketball hoop, or no football, stuff like that. I do the opposite. I'll say, for example, if you stop throwing your toys and put them away instead, we can bake cookies, or play with your boats in the water, stuff like that. I've actually heard that timeouts don't work or are not age appropriate for children under three I think it was. Heard it on Supernanny.

By Enchens on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 04:13 pm:

I did my math wrong, ds is a month older.

By Tink on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 04:39 pm:

I think time-outs and taking away things are appropriate for kids Kaitlyn's age. I don't think you were overreacting in your punishment but I don't know if it would be very powerful since it wasn't a concrete item that was taken away. I'm not sure the idea of going to someone's house and doing something fun has much of an impact on a toddler. Taking away a toy or video is something she can see being put up where she can't use it. Our kids knew that a toy was taken away and put on top of the fridge if they had misbehaved. JMO, of course.

By Kaye on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 04:53 pm:

Taking things away seems like a reasonable punishment, taking privledges away for us started at about school age. Under about 4 or 5, if the punishment isn't concrete, then really they don't get it. Now if you are out shopping and she has a melt down, we would leave, or leave while making cookies, but I would not have taken away something that was going to happen later that day or the next.

We also took toys away often, we called it putting the toy in time out.

By Unschoolmom on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 08:43 am:

I don't take things away. I regard them as my childrens property, not mine. Only exception is if a toy is used to hit. Then it gets put up until things have calmed down.

My universal way of dealing with stuff is sending them to their room until they feel calm enough to come out.

By Karen~moderator on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 08:55 am:

I think removal of privileges is the most effective way, so if it's taking a toy away, then so be it.

Spanking, IMO, tends to foster anger and encourage kids to handle issues with physicality, after a certain age. Don't get me wrong, you cannot reason with a 1 or 2 y/o (or even 3 y/o often) and a swat on the butt quickly gets their attention. But what does spanking *really* teach?? What effect does it really have?

From what I've seen, time-outs don't work well on a lot of kids, where taking things away from them will.