When the Naughty Step doesn’t work, this approach can show that bad behaviour doesn’t warrant any of your attention at all.
Given my failure with the Naughty Step, I was pleased to see that there might be another method for me to try.
With this technique you don’t give the child a warning, you just remove him from the room saying that his behaviour is unacceptable and he can come back when he’s ready to apologise.
Of course my boys were onto this one quite quickly.
Sorry!– they yelled through the door, the very second I’d removed them only to come back in and repeat the initial offense within a few minutes.
In the end I realised that I’d have to adapt the technique a bit if I were to truly test it.
This time, I told them that what they’d done was wrong and I was putting them outside for two minutes. They banged the door and yelled sorry but I didn’t let them back in until their time was up.
I actually found this nipped bad behaviour in the bud much more effectively since they were out of the room for long enough to break the pattern and it established my authority since I was able to follow through.
Mumalogues 