Brad, the “dad”

I was just watching an episode of The Simpsons when I should have been doing something worthwhile, but it did bring up an interesting question. Bart had done something bad – you know, the usual: blowing up the house, destroying Springfield, changing history so that Hitler won the war, something bad – and his mother said, “Bart, if you do that again, I’m going to delete all the saved games from your Xbox 360!” and the little twerp gave out a genuine scream of horror. “You can’t do that!” he wailed, and Marge said, “Oh, yes, I can! I know how since reading this!” and she whips out a copy of a magazine with the intriguing name of New Punishment. Not two minutes later he does something else awful and she says, “One more time, Bart, and I erase all the customized ringtones you downloaded!” and he’s even more panicky.

So here’s the two-part question: when your kids get to be That Certain Age, where the old ‘kid’ punishments don’t have the same “oomph” they used to…what “new punishments” seem to make them sit up and take notice? Loss of computer privileges? Loss of the car? Gool ol’ grounding? What works – and doesn’t work – for y’all?

Or are you more like me? Has it happened that, as the li’l ones have gotten not-so-li’l, the whole concept of punishment has lots its power? It sure has at our house. Our teens already know when they’ve done something wrong, and in the rare instances when they actually get caught before they confess, they’re already beaten themselves up far more than I could. And what little clout my disapproval may have works better now if I simply express it as, well, disapproval. Or deep, grim concern. They do all the work.

Besides, “punishing” my 17-year-old seems almost…I don’t know, quaint now, not to mention a little unethical (I mean, she’s making the insurance payments and buying gas for her car now…am I even allowed to say she can’t drive? Is that fair?) I’m happy that they seem to have become their own behavioral regulators – I guess – or am I just kidding myself? How would I kick-start the Great Karmic Engine if I had to?

Mary, the “mom”

Hmm…new punishment. I have to say, I like the hi-tech angle. But, only because I’d get a kick out of having something new to lord over them!

Realistically, I don’t really do a whole lot of punishing. Thankfully, there haven’t been a lot of behaviors to punish. But, when my kids were younger and punishment more frequent, I was always big on natural consequences.

So, in my kids’ lives today that translates to things like: “You didn’t bathe the dogs/water the flowers when you were supposed to, so now you’re going to have to do that instead of going bowling/to the mall.” Or: “You went over on your cell phone minutes, so pay up!” Or: “You’ve lied to me and now you’re going to have to work to prove that I can trust you, so in the meantime, I’m going to be checking up on you in ways that you consider an invasion of privacy.”

My son doesn’t have his license yet, but I suppose the only way I’d take away the car was if he had been driving irresponsibly. If you don’t drive responsibly, the natural consequence, in my mind, would be losing the privilege of driving. I can’t envision taking away the car as punishment for some unrelated infraction. And, I imagine, like so many other punishments I do sometimes consider, I’d just be punishing myself because then I’d have to drive him where he had to go!

I guess I’d better hope that the luck we’ve had continues, because it appears that I don’t have a whole lot of punishment options up my sleeve. Although, my daughter would freak if I threatened to delete those ringtones!

Rach, the “teen”

What sort of new punishments can parents use on high-tech teens? I don’t think you need new punishments. If a teen is misusing the family car, then you have a right to put some restrictions on it. If the kid isn’t doing chores don’t let them go out (or watch teevee, use the computer or whatever) until everything is done. It seems pretty simple to me. Like what mom said, natural consequences work.

They do get tricky and there are exceptions to punishment norms. If she’s paying for the car, and misusing it – it’s unethical to take it away. So, that’s when you impose a stricter curfew, or a limit to how much she can use it per week or something. And if they bought those ringtones, video games or whatever – then you’ve got to limit their use in some other way, but deleting their stuff is mean.

I love the Simpsons, and it’s interesting how the show got you thinking about “modern day” punishments. I mean, grounding is harder to enforce because of the internet, cell phones and other electronics. But I guess it still works when there has been some major violation (I mean really major, grounding is only effective when it’s used to really convey a message).

Punishment isn’t really a thing in our family though – my parents always check to see how badly my brother and I feel about something before they even bring up punishing. That is - I lied to them, got caught, confessed and cried for two days (typical me), I wouldn’t get punished because that would be adding insult to injury. It’s all relative, I think.

Read Grounded! How to Make Discipline Work.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 6:18 am and is filed under Family, General Parenting Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.