Worst punishment you have ever carried out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest (now 28) lied about playing video games late one night. He was about 11 at the time. I told him I was taking his Xbox. He said I couldn't because it was a gift from his grandparents. Instead of arguing, I cut the power to his room. His room was on the third floor and on a separate circuit from the rest of the house. He did homework with a lantern for a week. Super great parenting moment.

LOL . I aspire to this level of parenting genius. Well done.

It's well balanced against my epic fails.

Why would you let a kid have a tv and gaming system in his room? That was the bigger issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When they were younger, the worst punishment was an old fashioned spanking, which we carried out on some occasions.

As older kids, they haven't given us any reason to punish them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/12/the-fourth-r/547583/

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-strong-evidence-against-spanking/479937/

That first article is excellent. Sure spanking immediately stops the behavior but it ultimately more harmful. And those of you taking away phones are doing it right.

“Spanking is punishment, and punishment doesn’t work,” he said. “We know it with rats, we know it with humans. But if you can connect with a kid when they’re doing something right, they’re more likely to do that again in the future.”

As a father himself, he knows this is difficult to adhere to, but he believes this can happen even in the most difficult situation. “If a kid is having a temper tantrum and throwing things, and then next time they have a tantrum but don’t throw anything, say ‘I’m really glad you didn't throw anything.’”

The other evidence-based approach he recommends is taking something positive away. For younger children, that can mean taking away a toy temporarily. For older children and teenagers, this can mean taking away a cell phone. All of this is in service of teaching children to be respectful without disrupting the vital positive elements of the caretaker-child relationship.

We don't spank but if my husband did it as a one time thing like PP I would be ok with it. It really depends on the kid. I'd never take away a phone as they have it for my convince not theirs but I would heavily lock it down so they have no internet access, no games, etc.

If my kid throws things in a tantrum, he would not be having those things back for a very long time. I would not complement my kid having an epic tantrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My oldest (now 28) lied about playing video games late one night. He was about 11 at the time. I told him I was taking his Xbox. He said I couldn't because it was a gift from his grandparents. Instead of arguing, I cut the power to his room. His room was on the third floor and on a separate circuit from the rest of the house. He did homework with a lantern for a week. Super great parenting moment.

LOL . I aspire to this level of parenting genius. Well done.

It's well balanced against my epic fails.

Why would you let a kid have a tv and gaming system in his room? That was the bigger issue.

Because clearly I am not nearly as good a parent as you are. That kid is a college professor at a huge state university. I have four college grads all with great jobs. I'm going to claim success.

[Anonymous]

My daughter lied and told me her father approved something she knew I would have said no to (we're divorced and she was at his house the day before). Since I try not to undercut him and it didn't fall into that category of safety, I let it go. Soon after he and I talked about something else and he said how surprised he was that I signed off on this thing, because it didn't sound like something I'd approve.

So first, lesson learned on my part that I should have fact-checked. Now for the punishment...for some reason I still had an ancient flip phone in my drawer. It turns out that it takes the same SIM card as my child's smart phone. So out came the card and in it went to the flip phone. The smart phone stayed in my possession for a week. I swear, it was worse for her than just not having a phone, because in theory she could do things like text but it was incredibly hard and frustrating. By the end of the week she was begging for her phone back. Lately all I have to do is say the phrase "flip phone" and she reverses course on whatever she's doing.

[Anonymous]

My 11yr old DDs room has gotten so bad, there was food, dirty clothes with clean clothes, garbage, it was horrific. One day I’d had enough and I put every single thing that was on the floor in a garbage bag and she couldn’t get any of it back for a week. Im not even sure she has underwear that week. It worked tho, and I no longer have to nag and plead for her to straighten up her room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest (now 28) lied about playing video games late one night. He was about 11 at the time. I told him I was taking his Xbox. He said I couldn't because it was a gift from his grandparents. Instead of arguing, I cut the power to his room. His room was on the third floor and on a separate circuit from the rest of the house. He did homework with a lantern for a week. Super great parenting moment.

This is so absolutely amazing and perfect.
As the mom of a 10 year old, I’m taking notes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I made him donate his xbox after he lied to me about playing it during times it was off-limits.

You know you can set a curfew and screen time limits, right?

The punishment was about the lie. I’m a pretty laid back parent, but I won’t tolerate lying.

I think you dud the right thing. I know my kid can get around any kind of technological barrier. So if I catch him breaking rules and luring about it. The punishment will be severe.

[Anonymous]

DD, then 15, snuck out of the house and went to a party. Grounded for a month - school, sport practice, Church - that was it. No tv, screens or phone.

I was happy when that month was up!

[Anonymous]

I caught my 14 year doing mean girl type things via text. Nothing crazy and nothing directly to the other girl but she was basically making fun of said girl to her friends. I will have NONE of that. So I took away her highly prized Lululemon pants. She had 2 pairs. One from xmas and one that took 8 weeks or so of babysitting money to buy. And I wore them. Every single day. I would change from my work pants while leaving work and make sure she saw that I had those suckers on every.single.day. Did it for 6 weeks straight. Of course when she earned them back she could never wear them again because "I stretched them out with my mom butt."

[Anonymous]

My newest and most painful punishment... writing sentences. I can’t believe how much the kids (10 and 11) despise it. I have tried the take the phone away thing, but once I do that I have no other “carat” and she (my 10 yo is the most stubborn) doesn’t follow any rules because she has nothing to lose.

If the kids backtalk.. 50 sentences and increases with each back talk. Same with disobeying rules. I like that it is immediate and “annoying” to them and easy for me to be consistent on...

[Anonymous]

I took my son's phone away 4 weeks ago and haven't given it back yet. He's 13.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My newest and most painful punishment... writing sentences. I can’t believe how much the kids (10 and 11) despise it. I have tried the take the phone away thing, but once I do that I have no other “carat” and she (my 10 yo is the most stubborn) doesn’t follow any rules because she has nothing to lose.

If the kids backtalk.. 50 sentences and increases with each back talk. Same with disobeying rules. I like that it is immediate and “annoying” to them and easy for me to be consistent on...

I always thought it was "carrot"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I made him donate his xbox after he lied to me about playing it during times it was off-limits.

You know you can set a curfew and screen time limits, right?

Thanks for enlightening PP. I'm sure she had absolutely positively NO IDEA about curfews and screen limits.

[Anonymous]

I love this thread!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During high school, I took the car keys away for a week. He lied to me about wearing his retainer. Silly, I know, but don't lie to me. He had to take the bus to school and I would pick him up from athletic practice.

This is a standard go to for my teen driver. Driving is the ultimate privilege.

I took a phone for the the full summer a few years ago. He was 15 at the time.

I’ve had 10 days of “hard labor” (mainly yard work, mopping floors, cleaning walls, power washing house), with no electronics. Once labor was over he would read. He read a book a day for ten days.

You're my hero!