Overall I would say that during our punishment-free week, we learned that punishments don’t effect behavior significantly. We had about the same amount of behavior problems that we would have during any other week. There was certainly not the explosion of misbehavior that I had feared might come. In part, I think, because we did not stop using natural consequences like losing the right to use a toy if you are mistreating it, being asked to leave the room if you are putting other people or property at risk, etc.
I spent a lot of time thinking about what punishment is and questioning the techniques I was using to attempt to modify behavior. I’m glad I went through this exercise so I could use these techniques more mindfully, but I’m also glad that I can now let myself go back to using what feels right for our family without agonizing over whether I’m “breaking the rules” of our no punishment experiment.
I missed using the counting techniques I’d learned reading 1,2,3 Magic. M responds well to counting when I manage to do it with a calm tone of voice. I send her to her room for a time out if she reaches three. I do think we will return to using this type of time out, because it helps us have a break from each other to calm down when we are both angry. Some people would consider the type of time out we use punishment and some would not. M goes to the reading corner in her room where she can look at books or play quietly until time is up. We want her to calm down, not necessarily be forced to sit still without touching anything. It’s done from a perspective of settling her emotions, not making her suffer.
I will also continue to take things away from her when she mistreats them or uses them in an inappropriate way. An example would be throwing a doll across the room or bouncing a ball on C’s head. But I don’t think I’ll return to using the loss of a toy as a punishment when it’s not a natural consequence of how she was playing with it. An example of that would be telling her she cannot play with her animals because she deliberately poured milk on the floor.
I think the most important thing I learned was what punishment really means to me - doing something to make a child suffer because they have broken a rule. I will continue to use techniques that some people might consider punishments like time out, but my mindset will be one of changing behavior through natural consequences and helping M learn how to deal better with her emotions as well as continue to find techniques to help me deal with my own anger and frustration more constructively.
