Safety gates for older children

dollydoodah

thorsoak wrote: »

I get very concerned when I read that people do not like using the word "no" to their children

Where did the OP say that she did not like saying 'no' to her daughter?

mrcow

She's 7.

She doesn't help herself to anything.

So when you ban her from usng the DS for a week - does she still go downstairs and help herself to stuff or scream and shout? Because if she did, it's another week's ban. If she's been banned from it for 6 weeks in a row - the things gets given to the local Oxfam charity shop.

She wouldn't be going downstairs into my kitchen in the middle of the night - why let her do it to you?

thorsoak

dollydoodah wrote: »

Where did the OP say that she did not like saying 'no' to her daughter?

The OP says "She seems to be totally oblivious to being punished, she shouts and screams when you do it then goes straight back and does it again " - which to me indicates that the word NO is not being used - the child is being punished but does not seem to recognise what she is being punished for.

rev229

I had this problem with my own DD she has special needs and used to or still would like to wander around the house at night. We got a alarm from homebase which is installed at the bottom of the stairs. It has a blipper that you press to switch it on. She would get down 3 stairs and it would go off! We had a stair gate also but they soon learn to open it quietly. It a yale motion sensor alarm that uses 4 AA batteries. I will have a look on the website to see if I can find it. Its the yale basic alarm on the homebase website 29.99. HTH

onetomany

my 7 year old boy shuts and gets cross at me i think the way forward is to be consant, my boy got sent to his room 8 times it took daddy taking him back upstairs to his room hitting and screaming , untill he relised thats where he will stay untill the tantrum stops and he comes down and says sorry , i dont think we should judge the op as we dont no if the child has special needs or anything but yea im not sure stair gates are the anserw my son has hyper mobility and low muscle tone and he can open the two gates we have (for the dog)

DigitalJedi

I can't help but think that the use of a contraption such as a baby gate is completely missing the point.

At 7 years old, the child needs to be disciplined rather than turning the house into a fortress.

What are you going to do when she is 14 and wants to hang out on street corners with undesirables? Install deadbolts on her bedroom door?

Gingham_Ribbon

There are lots of reasons children do this, including some special needs (dyspraxia or high giftedness for example) that mean the child can find it hard to 'switch off' or they just need less sleep than most people.

If she's treating night time like it's day, I don't think punishing her will solve the problem. Encouraging her to stay in her room and rewarding her when she does may help. And it may help her tell you why she wakes up and feels the need to go wandering.

It may be worth looking at a parenting class or speaking to your health visitor or GP as well as trying the gate.

Good luck. I have a 6 year old who can't sleep. It's exhausting! Fortunately, he doesn't come downstairs during the night but he doesn't get to sleep till gone 10 most nights, despite a very calm bedtime at 7 each night.

delain

Thank you all of you for your advice.

Yes i do say no to her. A lot. But she carries on anyway.

She has been told that 'You DO NOT go in the kitchen without a grownup, it's a dangerous room'

She has had things taken away, she has mastered 'I don't care' It's not easy to punish a child who just doesn't give a toss!

I've tried taking her out just her and me for one on one stuff, but she just acts up there too.

I've tried having colouring stuff out all the time, but my hallway wall got graffitied so much you would have had a hard time telling what colour the wall was supposed to be. Now i put them away when they have finished with them! My twins have autistic tendencies and are incredibly literal and not averse to wall scribbling either.

I have tried to tell her teachers since she started school that i think she has dyspraxia as it's in my family, my brother had it and she is exactly like him, from the not sleeping to the not concentrating properly in class to the mirrored handwriting. A stand in teacher just before christmas (a retired one, who taught my brother and myself) said 'Has she been tested for dyspraxia?' My god i almost wept with relief! So hopefully they will take me seriously now and not go 'oh, it's because she's left handed'

thorsoak

It's going to be hard work - but you do have to work on her behaviour as well as getting her diagnosed. Dyspraxic or not, she has to learn to live in the world as it is, not how it appears to her - so you have to do a lot of work so that she realises this.

It's not going to be enough to tell her "its dangerous in the kitchen without a grown-up" why? Are there crocodiles? Will a Bad Man get her? That's the danger she would envisage - not the danger in she could get burnt/cut herself, etc.

Tell her "you must not go into the kitchen - it isn't allowed - and if you go into the kitchen when you have been told not to, then you will lose your toys". Then take her toys away - one by one, if necessary, locking them away where she cannot get to them (I've resorted in the past to keeping things in my car boot ....got quite full at one time :rolleyes:). Then tell her she will NOT get them back until she stops behaving like this - and she gets them back, one by one.

My experience of dyspraxic children (have a couple of friends who have children/grandchildren who have dyspraxia & g/son hovers on the edge of symptons) is that they take what is said to them literally - and that they seem to cope better if they know that there are Rules by which life run - the "Rules" being as simple as time to go to bed & be quiet/time to get up to how to behave in a shopping centre/play ground.

delain

thorsoak wrote: »

It's going to be hard work - but you do have to work on her behaviour as well as getting her diagnosed. Dyspraxic or not, she has to learn to live in the world as it is, not how it appears to her - so you have to do a lot of work so that she realises this.

It's not going to be enough to tell her "its dangerous in the kitchen without a grown-up" why? Are there crocodiles? Will a Bad Man get her? That's the danger she would envisage - not the danger in she could get burnt/cut herself, etc.

Tell her "you must not go into the kitchen - it isn't allowed - and if you go into the kitchen when you have been told not to, then you will lose your toys". Then take her toys away - one by one, if necessary, locking them away where she cannot get to them (I've resorted in the past to keeping things in my car boot ....got quite full at one time :rolleyes:). Then tell her she will NOT get them back until she stops behaving like this - and she gets them back, one by one.

My experience of dyspraxic children (have a couple of friends who have children/grandchildren who have dyspraxia & g/son hovers on the edge of symptons) is that they take what is said to them literally - and that they seem to cope better if they know that there are Rules by which life run - the "Rules" being as simple as time to go to bed & be quiet/time to get up to how to behave in a shopping centre/play ground.

We tried 'The kitchen is not allowed' approach, we introduced danger because she seemed to think I was just saying it or the sake of being mean, and she said so!

She has been told why it's dangerous, She's had things taken away, maybe I'm not being clear enough but I am very firm with her on it, especially since now she has started climbing up, and she broke her arm when she was younger climbing but even the thought of a broken arm or leg hasn't stopped her.

Rules are something to be broken in her opinion. However simple and routine they are, she always feels the need to break them.

Whilst we're doing our best with her behaviour in general, it just isn't getting any easier