Penguin Naughtiness

Right, I think I’ve gone wrong somewhere.  I’m not a fan of smacking so I’ve been trying to institute the naughty corner as a time-out place for my two year old. I probably would have been more inclined to set up a naughty step but as his nursery school uses a corner, I thought consistency was probably the way forward. So naughty corner it was. I picked a corner, waited patiently for the next full-blown floor-pounding tantrum (not a long wait!) and off he went to said corner. He wailed in the corner for a bit and once the storm had passed, we went on with our day. ‘Excellent. Easy as..’, I thought.

When little pumpkin and I encountered our next difference of opinion, I sternly informed him that he was headed for the naughty corner. ‘OK’ he said sulkily so off he went. We had a couple of similar run-ins resulting in more corner time. However, I realised something was amiss when one evening at bedtime he was offered the options of either sitting quietly on the couch drinking his milk or going straight to bed. He responded with ‘naughty corner?’. Um, not actually one of the options on offer my love.

My suspicions were confirmed on shower night. My eldest son definitely mistakes hair washing for some kind of torture. Whilst I was struggling with a sobbing, slippery, naked toddler, I was slightly alarmed to hear him howl between sobs ‘I want to go to the naughty corner, I want to go to the naughty corner!!’ Not exactly a raging success then.

I guess I could use the threat of a shower to deter misbehaviour but then I’d only have myself to blame if I ended up with the grubbiest teenager this world has ever known.

Ps while I’ve been typing this, little one’s pet stuffed penguin has been escorted to the naughty corner and told to stay there until he’s ‘finished’. Wonder what Pengu did to deserve that…