I was talking with a friend yesterday, who happens to be the mother of 3 girls (twins included) and a little boy. She was talking about how hard it is to punish one of her particular children. This girl likes to be alone, so sending her to the corner, or someplace by herself, is useless. And sending any kid to their room these days is pointless. It's where all their stuff is. The stuff they love to play with....
She is a little too young for grounding. It doesn't hurt anyone less than a teenager, very much.
This conversation got us to talking about the punishments we got as children, and had me remembering the worst one that ever happened to me.
I was 10, and hot tempered for a kid. My Mom was working full time in a town a little more than an hour from where we lived, so me, and the 2 sisters were basically stuck with each other every day after school, until well after 6 pm.
One day (Well, okay, every day) Older sister really ticked me off. And then, because she could, she sent me to my room. This was an every day thing. But for some reason, I didn't want to go. So I stomped up the stairs, ( I was wearing boots) and kicked my bedroom door. Promptly putting a hole in it. (Not very solid; not solid at all, really).
Needless to say, when my mom got home, I was in some serious trouble.
She had my Dad take the door off my bedroom. It was gone for months.
Those of you who know me in real life, know that I really value privacy, and am fairly modest. Not having a door REALLY impacted me. It was disturbing. Anyone could come in, at any time, and see what I didn't want them to, or the mess I was making, ect. I HATED having my door gone. I begged, frequently, to get it back.
I finally did, hole and all. And I was very grateful for its return. And I never kicked my door, again.
As for my friend, with the kids?
I wish her luck.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Crime and Punishment
Posted by mielikki at 10:24 AM
Labels: batman, holey door
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5 comments:
I love creative punishments. They're usually very effective at getting the desired behavior modification.
Garage sale toys, twenty five cents to childhood happiness. Also, an effective and cheap way to punish kids, they can be thrown away which has profound results. I remember it being done to me, and I'm sure here in the near future I will do it to my son too.
My favorite punishment is making them write down what they did wrong, what they would do differently, and then make them present it to whomever they wronged.
missb - that won't work for my two year old, who draws a line and calls it a rainbow.
good lord, mie, that was quite a punishment. at least with my mom, you got your beating and moved on!
yay for violence...no, wait. i'm against that.
but i'm also against doorless rooms. :)
oh that sucked .. but I expect it worked. It must be extremely hard to punish kids effectively w/o hitting them or verbally abusing them .. its no wonder there are so many spoiled brats .. my worst punishment was for inciting my sister one early weekend morning and waking my parents . Dad strode into the bedroom .. lifted me out of my sister's crib (she was maybe 2 or 3 which made me 7 or 8) and whacked my bottom, put me in my own bed and said NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN. I didnt.
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