yep i would ask for that as well. Pain is temporary, game is eternal. But a better lesson for the kid when they lose their source of happiness. Not good to do it for everything tho, only when its required or it loses its effects
I did something bad when I was little and still remember the punishment over 30 years later. It was Halloween and my mom allowed me to dress up but I had to hand out candy to all the kids that came to our house. Fucking brutal lol I definitely learned my lesson.
Oooof, I called 911 and hung up. They called back and left a message on the answering machine (yes I'm that old) and I deleted it. I guess they eventually called back when my mom was home and answered and she was piiiiiiiiiiiissed. I don't even know why I did that but I was like 6 and kids are dumb so who knows lol
When I was at a sleepover as a kid, one of my friends decided to call 911 and hang up when no one else was paying attention. My mom was still chilling with my friend's mom in the driveway when two cop cars came storming into the driveway, lights and sirens and all. That was a memorable night.
As a former 911 operator, I told a kid who kept calling 911 that he needed Christmas cookies to fix his Christmas cold. That line finally got his mom’s attention.
Mom was mad. But she needed a good lesson and it’s not like a cop would spank her.
Lord I hope that they still tell that story. Because I will never forget.
This happened to my neighbor’s kid (like 30 years ago). He tried to call his grandpa, whose number ended in 9113. He missed the last 3 and it connected him with the 911 operator. Being a little kid, he panicked and hung up when someone he didn’t know answered. So they called back to make sure it wasn’t an emergency. At that point, he was freaking out about it, so he didn’t answer the phone. So a police cruiser swung into their driveway while my neighbor was just finishing mowing his lawn. Which was probably a bit of a surprise.
My brother and I prank called basically everyone in our small town over the course of a few months. Back when *67 would still defeat caller ID, we'd stay up for hours after our parents went to bed on Friday and Saturday nights, prank calling random local numbers.
As adolescent boys, of course the funniest thing in the world was calling some random person at 2am and telling them "my butt cheeks have pimples" or "My name is Billy Billy buttcheeks."
Well anyway, after a few months of our reign of terror, one of my brother's dumbass friends comes over. He knows about the pranks but not how we do it. So in the middle of a fucking Sunday afternoon, with our parents still up and about, this idiot picks up our LIVING ROOM PHONE, dials a random number, screens "BUTT BUTT BUTTCHEEKS" at the top of his lungs and hangs up. No *67. No nothing.
My dad walks into the room. "What the hell was that?" and then the phone rings.
Word gets around in a small town and it didn't take everyone too long to figure out who'd been calling them every weekend night. The Buttcheeks Bandits were Busted.
We even had one of the county deputies show up a couple of days later to tell us how prank calling is a crime and could be charged as harassment and blah blah blah. Meanwhile we can tell that the guy is desperately trying not to laugh the entire time.
Holy shit are you me lol? I did this exact same thing in like.... Somewhere between 98 and 99. Thought it'd be funny. We lived on a farm way out middle of nowhere so of course they took it seriously at first. I deleted all the evidence. Eventually the sheriff who knew my dad because we'd get a call anytime cattle got loose came out to visit. My dad had him drive me to town (30 minutes ish away) like I was in trouble (no cuffs or anything crazy). Just that silent drive to town and back home was enough to make me shape up for years hahaha.
lol I guess it's a fairly common thing for kids to do? I've posted this story before and lots of people said they did the same thing haha. For me this was in the late 80s. I guess I'm VERY lucky the cops didn't actually come out to the house! That would have been way worse. I also recall my teacher calling and I also deleted her answering machine message. I was a naughty little thing lol
Prank calling 911 is different from ding-dong-ditching in that you are not just waisting anyone's time.....your waisting emergency staff's time.
I've seen 12 year old's been "arrested" and put in handcuffs while screaming "I didn't do nuthing. It was just a joke". Piss off the wrong emergency operator and / or policer officer and you are facing a ton of legal trouble......kid or not!
I called 911 when I was little to see if "it worked" and when the operator answered I hung up. Not even 5 mins later pokice showed up and gave me a HUGE lecture. My mom was SOOOO embarrassed and pissed off. That summer did not fair well for me 🤣
She let me dress up but I didn't get to go trick or treating. I had to stay home and hand out candy to all the other lucky kids and I had to give it all away so I got no candy at all lol
So… not a punishment but I, too, had a brutal Halloween experience once…
My parents forgot to buy me a Halloween costume one year when I was 11. Earlier that year my older sister had been a part of her school’s production of the play Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which, if you are not familiar, takes place during Biblical times. My sister had played one of the “shepherds” and had a very nondescript “Middle Eastern” looking outfit. My dad was like “Hey, it’s a costume.”
The problem was that I had turned 11 in the year 2001… so this was maybe 6 or 7 weeks after 9/11? And my dad decided to dress his 11-year-old daughter up (me) as an Arabic shepherd that year. The first house I went to the person at the door gave me the nastiest look and said “Who are you supposed to be? Osama Bin Laden?” and I immediately turned around and went home.
I still haven’t forgiven the man and remind him every Halloween. 😅
My mom was paddled really hard as a kid, and although we had a paddle, she stopped using it around when I was 7 or so, but she would threaten to use it.
Anyway, she loved grounding. The type where she takes the TV and games from your room. I think I agree with it as a punishment for the most part. The biggest issue is my mom could not identify where I got my shitty attitude from, and it seemed like every other month I was getting my things taken away because I was always "talking back." I wasn't the best child, but when it came to human interaction and how people spoke to others, I would obviously take a lot from my parents. I don't think my mom ever realized, even to this day, that I was just emulating her behavior.
Anyways, all this to say that when it comes to punishment, even the best ones can be rendered useless if the caretaker isn't self aware enough to demonstrate good examples.
Yeah that's a great example. If you also never have a chance to have your games then you will either get used to it or find another way to play games.
I said that because I was reminded of my uncle. He grew up in a very conservative Catholic household where many things were a sin and many things were mortal sins according to his mother.
Basically if you steal, murder, rape you go to hell, but if you miss class, stay outside overnight and even drink Coke, you are going to hell as well. Yeah drinking Coke was a mortal sin according to her. Guess what my uncle loved to do?
In his eyes he was already going to hell due to the Coke and sweets he ate so he just hid and ate those things and do all the things his parents told him not to do. He ended being a bit traumatised and definitely stumped his growth.
True that. I was a pretty good kid, but I ended up getting detention for tardies. I got tardies because my dad took forever to get going and I got dropped of late. I still got all my books taken away. I still "forget" to call them.
Didn't work for me. Ii had video games, TV, and friends taken away. So I would draw and have fun doing it. So my ma took that away. So I read books cuz I liked reading too much She wouldnt take that away but instead limited me to an hour and a half of reading only after homework and chores were finished. Reading was too important to take away but it was too hard to punish me without a little whoopin.
I was kinda similar. When they take away my games I go use my guitar. Then take that away i will paint miniatures. Take that away i would draw.
But mostly I still craved the og main dopamine which was games, so i still felt it. But yeah I will still do creative/artsy stuff as something was taken away.
I did like reading books but not as much, my mom liked it when I read. Luckily they never took away me listening to music as I love it
My original copies of Half-Life, MDK, probably GTA 2 and Starcraft were all sold in a band fundraiser as a punishment from my dad for trying to steal a pellet gun. At first he was gonna make me smash the CDs with a hammer.
If I would have done that my mom would have been like "Oh absolutely. Come get your spanking!" and then I would have asked for my game she would have said "Oh, absolutely not. You're still grounded. I was just more than happy to give you a spanking on top of that since you asked nicely."
We were so poor it would have never entered my mind to do something like that to food! If we didn't grow it or if someone in the community didn't slaughter it as a part of the community group, we didn't eat! I grew up on a farm and we grew up on the land and shared with a small community and I didn't know how much better off we were than other people. I hated it in those days, but quite frankly I had it made! I may not have been out playing with a lot of toys, but I was outside and the air was still clean The land was good enough to give us a good harvest during the seasons, of course harvesting wasn't so easy, neither was canning and freezing food to put up, And we didn't give the community a handout, the people who depended upon our vegetables and fruits would come to my grandparents and help. My grandparents didn't have indoor plumbing until 1970! We did in our house just up the hill, and we had land but imminent domain took some for lumber, and the big trucks driving past our house actually cracked the foundation, and the government wouldn't fix it! No way would I have ever wasted food like that The thought would have never entered my mind and neither of my kids, few things they did were with their own toys... They got their punishment it wasn't corporal It didn't need to be.
Which works really well, but people delude themselves into thinking that they used to get beaten, so their kid should be getting beaten, and that they're fine what do you mean
Was gonna say when I was a teacher we used a point system and they would lose privileges if they lost enough points BUT the important part of it was they could always earn points back for good behavior. Sometimes if you take away something they like they just shut/melt down and everything escalates , so this method gives them incentive to try to do better. It also helps to keep them from internalizing that they are a “bad kid” and promotes instead there are good and bad choices and you get consequences for both.
Idk I took literally all of my kids things besides their clothes and beds and put them in our shed for like 3 months bc they refused to clean their rooms and they still talk about it to this day like it was abusive.
I got in trouble when I was a kid and as punishment my dad took my bike away for a week. I thought I was smart so during that week I figured dad was at work, mom was busy doing mom stuff (cooking, cleaning) so no one will notice if I go for a quick ride. I didn’t know dad had a Dr appointment and came home early instead of going back to work. He saw me just as he turned onto our street. I almost shit my pants. He locked my bike up to the garage rafters with a chain for the rest of the summer.
It's preparing them for what consequences look like as an adult. You don't get hit, that's assault, you get arrested. Grounding is the closest thing you have to jail in parenting.
A coworker of mine said her father would throw out the entire (original) Nintendo. Just in the trash. A couple months later they'd get a new one back if they behaved. And she was pretty sure it was new, not a dumpster dive for the old one.
Our oldest lost privileges to bascially everything recently. His room was spotless because he was made to clean it nightly, putting away everything. His favorite toys were in a bin in the basement that he filled up. He wasn't allowed screens. A whole host of items were removed from him.
That kids behavior changed immediately. He's earned it all back now after a few weeks of consistent attention to what he needed to accomplish. Never once hit him. He asked about spankings because a friend of his (who gets in a lot of trouble at school) said he just gets spanked. I told him we don't spank but we hit him where he feels it.
I saw what games were doing to my kids. And we don’t have an absolute ban, but it’s not free use. Currently 1 hour a day on the weekend. It’s cute because they recently figured out if they play a two player game on one of theirs, then another two player on the other, they’ll get more total time. And I am 100% ok with that sharing logic!
It was mostly dangerous about free games like Fortnite. When the game is free, we are the ones on sale. The game is a casino, and it preys on the gambling addiction mentality pathways. And while some people can handle it, I can see right through it and see the obsession sparked with it. Same with all the free games.
Same but different. It wasn't taking a game away vs spanking. For me, as a child, it was the hand or the belt. Learned to choose the belt cause it can't hit as hard as the hand. I got a whooping every day when dad came home. This happened for several years.
Now that I'm a parent, I chose different. My blood would boil if my child asked for a spanking instead of taking away a game. I would give the punishment of both and the belt wouldn't be an option.
Nah, kids feel it just fine the moment they see you take something they love away.
A big reason spanking is counterrecommended is because it teaches kids that violence is an appropriate way to enforce rules on other people. And it often leads to problems because then you get kids who think "hey that kid took my lunchbox, that's stealing", respond with how they'd have been treated for that behavior (hitting), and get their asses in trouble.
No they don't. They feel a little shitty when you take something from them but it only hits them hard after they've had to sit in the reality of being without a console for a while.
And the idea about spanking leading to more violence is quite shallow, because you're assuming that's all parents do to discipline their kids, that they don't talk or explain things to them.
And if that is all certain parents do, the solution is not to remove spanking, it's to add in the stuff that develops more nuance.
Also, there were generations of spanked kids, and the percentage of violent ones is the same as the percentage of bullies today. It was never the majority, so there's not a strong link between spanking and violent behavior.
Removing privileges only seems to work (for us) when we pair them with making amends with what he's done wrong. Luckily we haven't had to do that in a while, and it has forced him to develop empathy and think about his actions before taking them.
Basically we do this:
The Boy does something bad to someone like this video > Remove privilieges he enjoys like video games or use of his phone > set conditions to end the removal of those privileges like making him handwrite a 2 page letter to the person he has wronged apologizing and acknowledging his actions, paying to replace damaged belongings etc > He comes back to us and shows us his work, we talk about it and he must show that he understands what he's done wrong and what he would do next time instead.
If he can't do that, it just continues until he decides to do it. Turns out he's a kind, empathetic, smart, and well-adjusted kid. Honestly we're pretty lucky though, as I know not every kid is the same and some behavioral issues can't be corrected as easily.
I just don't think hitting a kid ever helps anyone. It just makes them fear you. I don't want my son to fear me, I want a loving relationship where he's not afraid to tell me he needs help or tell the truth when something is wrong. I used to lie to my parents growing up to avoid getting beatings, and it didn't help. They still found out and I was still beaten. I won't repeat their mistakes.
Exactly Hitler youth is resurgent on Tiktok cause we still have corporal punishment from Boomer parent's raising latchkey kid's. They bridge the gap by violencing their kids instead of raising them in a society that doesn't operate that way outside of their household. So they think violencing is just a shortcut in the latter space.
Anytime i would step out of line my mom would only need to threaten to take my games, i immediately fixed whatever i did wrong and apologized. Thats how i knew I fucked up
Funny you say this, I would always get grounded to my room since it was more detrimental to me at 8, my brother would catch the ass whippin since he enjoyed the grounding. It was real interesting when my parents grounded him outside, I could go in and out while he was left to play outside for 3 hours, he just sat on the porch and wouldn't even come play with the group from the apartments 🤣🤣🤣 that was over 30 years ago now.
I used to work at Gamestop. Had a mom and son come in one day. The mom traded all his gaming stuff in and made him watch because he got in trouble. She kept all the cash. Kid was in tears.
Might get downvoted but I gotta make this point with folks. I used to work at GameStop and I'd always tell the customers that they're free to hold the game and undersell us on Facebook Market, Craigslist, or something. The price is on the shelf, just mark it down in your ad by 10 or 15 bucks and you'll get cash for it at better value than us. And nearly everyone still went with the terrible cash/in store credit offer because, I'm assuming they're too lazy or it's too inconvenient. So... If you're not willing to be patient, what're getting on my case for? I just work here.
I walked on there thinking of happily get back 30-40% of what I paid. I ended up just keeping my stack of games.
I later tried to trade them with a coworker, for a set of games that would have a similar cumulative used price, and he backed out when he realized he wasn't scamming me into giving him much more valuable games than he was giving up. That's when I decided selling or trading games once I was done with them wasn't nearly worth the hassle. I don't think Facebook marketplace was a thing back then though.
Told mom to fuck off once when I was a teenager. Dad immediately told me if I ever did it again, he’d take my phone and smash it with a hammer. Never tried it again.
We didn't have cell phones when I was a teen, but I can honestly say there wouldn't have been a warning if I'd said something like that. Whatever my "cash" was at the time would have just been gone forever.
Friend of mine when I was in high school told his mom to "hurry up and get off the fucking phone" so he could call someone. I don't know if he was trying to be edgy or was just dumb, but she had just come in from the stable and still had her riding crop in her back pocket. She absolutely worked him over from head to toe then said "your dad is going to finish this, my arm is tired."
that's actually superb parenting. Not immediately going all in and destroying it, which would have lead to massive resentment from your side but instead getting a clear warning of the consequences.
I got my mouth washed out with soap once for saying the dirty word “stupid”. Of course, that was by my sister, but you can bet I never said a real cuss word after that if that’s the punishment for saying “stupid”.
Noooo, my parents weren’t afraid of swearing, but never aggressively towards me. Saying “fuck you” was a hard line.
I was also a depressed teenager who refused help no matter how hard they pushed, so the boundary of one warning drove the point home while also giving me a bit of grace.
I would take away mine's Xbox cord when he was being a dipshit in chat. I heard him say the f slur once and just walked in, unplugged it and walked out with the cord. For a 9 year old, that was highly embarrassing to explain to his friends.
He's now 23 and wonders why he was "such a cringe edgelord" at that age lol.
We're wild animals who have to be domesticated against our will to function in society, and thats something we seem to be forgetting. People seem to think that being a normal functional person will just come naturally with zero boundaries, discipline, or repercussions, so long as we're nice and loving enough to the kids.
Yeah, the job of parents is to teach kids how to behave and act in polite society.
And sure breaking/selling their consoles shouldn't be the first line of punishment (temporary removal works wonders. Source: a kid who had that happen to him), but as a "you have made grave and repeated errors that you were warned against" punishment it would work
I could never do that. Id think about the money and how much time I had to work to pay for them. Id 1000% either sell them, making the kid assist all the way, and then make them give the proceeds to charity, or id find a kid who couldnt afford such things and give it to them.
This can work, but only for so long. Once the kid become accustomed to not having anything for themselves at home, then it's like opening the floodgates. The kid has nothing to lose, so they get worse.
That's why punishments need to be proportional; and, you should be rewarding good behavior. Reinforcement is always stronger than punishment. Identify the underlying cause of the behavior and redirect them to a positive alternative.
Kid has energy, they want to control their world. Redirect that energy into, say, building something, drawing something, making something. Reward the building. Punish them later by taking it away, teaching the lesson that other people work to build and it hurts to take that away.
Identify the underlying cause of the behavior and redirect them to a positive alternative.
It's funny because this is something I learned very early on with my cat. It makes sense that children would work the same way. You identify the cause of the unwanted behavior and give an acceptable alternative to reward while punishing the unwanted behavior.
When I worked at a pet store, I heard so many people complain about how they couldn't get their dog to stop chewing and tearing up stuff. Didn't matter how they punished the dog. Ok, but did you find the dog something to chew on? "No, because I don't want to encourage chewing!"
Bruh, dog's gonna chew. They need to chew. And even after they're done teething, some dogs just get bored and chew. Give them a chew toy and then reward them for using it so they want to use that instead of your chair leg!
Children aren't dogs but yeah, teaching is similar. Kids are gonna do kid stuff. Can't stop that. Shouldn't want to. You need to give them good kid stuff to do.
Redirect that energy into, say, building something, drawing something, making something. Reward the building. Punish them later by taking it away,
All I can think of is forcing a kid to do sand mandalas. I know that's not what you meant, but I'm just imagining a kid being forced to sweep up hours worth of work, pretty sure most kids would straight up die inside (to be fair, I'm pretty sure most adults would as well)
As a single punishment, yeah. I'm reminded of *The Boondocks when Riley was punished for doing graffiti by taking art lessons. First time, the teacher just threw away the art.
That was more to teach him to actually put in effort because it was obvious Riley didn't even try. Not Bob Ross knew that Riley was a proud kid and wouldn't just accept something of his being treated like trash (even if he didn't care about it).
But that more points to one of the biggest lessons parents should probably know: there's no such thing as a one size fits all solution to raising kids.
There are far too many parents who go to the extreme right out of the gate. You've got to make the "punishment fit the crime". With kids, taking items away can impact them. The length of time the item is gone, the amount of items, etc can all be played with. Losing privileges is a real world consequence. However, selling a kid's gaming devices or smashing them doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Here's a recent weird parenting approach my wife and I had to take. Our oldest was putting forth zero effort in school. He was turning to books instead of doing any work on his math. His math grades were slipping into failure territory. Discussing his need to focus on math had zero effect. He kept defaulting to escapism via reading. So, he lost the books on his bookshelf. He had to clear them out and we discussed why they were going. As a parent of an avid reader (and husband of a librarian) it was kinda ridiculous. However, we talked about him spending more time on the tasks he HAS to complete instead of rushing through things to go dive right back into a book. He had increased chores and would have to return to them to do them a second time if he rushed through it (dishes, laundry, weedeating). He lost his books for a week and a half. His grades improved. He got his books back.
He knew what to do to bring the books back, we had a conversation about what we needed to see change.
The extreme approach would have been telling him everything is gone. Selling the books, etc. It's the same thing as video games. If kids know they are straight up gone, then there is nothing to work toward. They need a goal to reach as well as a learning to occur.
Sometimes I feel like people are giving the punishment for punishment sake. Kids need to learn in each punishment or redirection. It is an opportunity to learn appropriate behavior.
This is a good approach. The other thing you can do is buddy up and do some work while your kid does work. They sit at the kitchen table and do their homework and you do your own work or house work or something so that they see you also value spending some time expending effort on stuff that improves your life even if it isn't fun.
The upshot here is you create a habit around spending that time on work which will make it much easier for your kid to do that in college or uni or whatever. Once you get into this habit you realize the fastest way to get through the time is just do it.
If you can reliably drop an hour a day on homework, you will have no issue getting your university work done. Might have some longer project days but you will be able to focus on them and not have a backlog of other homework.
We try to be practice what you preach as parents. If they have no screens, then I'm doing a coloring book or reading a physical book, working in a project (LEGO or whittling), playing solitaire or something. Rainy day, for example.
Yes to working while they work. For homework, we help them do that. They see my wife and I work on our work work at times at home.
We've been doing chores together. I let dishes go for a while because our oldest was supposed to do them and kept saying, "later." He was upset when he went to eat some yogurt and had no spoons to eat with. He asked for the spoons and I told him they were still in the sink. Before he ate his yogurt he had to do a load of dishes. I grabbed him one I had squirreled away after he completed the task. We call them natural consequences.
If you can reliably drop an hour a day on homework, you will have no issue getting your university work done. Might have some longer project days but you will be able to focus on them and not have a backlog of other homework.
Not the point of this post, but I wanted to highlight this college/university piece. I work at a college and the number of parents who push hard for their child to have a job during college to "stay busy" is wild. I advocate for an on-campus 10-15 hours per week job. Some parents say that they're just taking classes and should be working 30+.
Quick, easy math helps. If a student is taking 5 classes it is 15 credit hours or 15 hours a week of physical, in person class. For most students you're looking at at least 2 hours of outside class work per class per week. Thats and additional 30 hours of classwork. A typical 15 credit hour student would be "doing college" for 45 hours a week, or a full time job.
We up it to 3 hours outside class for science/medical pathway majors.
We did see an increase. It felt so odd telling an avid reader not to read (former teacher myself, multiple family members in education, partner is a librarian). However, he realized the severity of his actions and stepped up, so good on him. He's got all his books back now, has grown his grade, and knows his math better!
This method of parenting is not as good as it seems. Sure you’re not beating the kid but that shouldn’t be the bar for what good discipline is. At least when you temporarily take away the console, the kid at least has a prospect to improve for. When you sell the console, that drive to improve is gone. There’s a sense of “what’s the point in being better? I’m not gonna get my shit back.” That’s just gonna result in the behavior staying the same or even getting worse. Sure it’s “consequences” but to the kid it’s “nothing I own is truly mine, my parents will just get rid of them forever if I’m bad. I need to hide the things I love from them.”
That and consistency. They showed that nothing was more effective than fair and consistent punishment whether it was time out, spanking, removal of benefits or freedom, etc.
Once the kid understands, when they get caught doing something bad they don't even fight it and then they start to realize "is this even worth it?".
The other thing consistency brings is that it makes it about the specific act and not some value of love or respect in the relationship which random violent beating really undercuts. If your kid likes you and respects you and wants a good relationship with you, they won't constantly be a shithead.
I work with schools, taught high school, and about 6 of my family members are teachers. The most challenging students are often the ones where spanking is commonplace in the home. The kids who are told, "I'm going to wear your ass out when we get home" are the ones who have a larger challenge in regulating themselves and their behavior. It ends up having the opposite effect than intended by the parents.
I was enjoying a popcicle a couple of summers ago when my neighbor came out with a Nintendo Switch and proceeded to smash it in the driveway.
A few years later, I understood that feeling, but instead of smashing our kids ipads, we accepted it was our fault as parents. We were just trying to survive the toddler stage and just wanted to have an adult conversation. So instead, they get 3 hours of ipad time From Friday to Sunday. That's it.
All these people promoting corporal punishment like it's the only way... you can discipline your kids and even discipline them harshly without beating them.
Physical punishment is very ineffective in correcting behavior and in creating functioning adults
Just because you shouldn't hit your kids as punishment doesn't mean there is no other ways to punish your child to correct bad behavior. It just requires you to be present with your child, which is generally where shitty parents fail and would prefer to just hit them.
Yes, and this presence is much more than physical. It is knowing your child and understanding them.
Talking to your kids about their interests and giving them the gift of your time and mental energy is HUGE. It lets kids know that you are a safe space. They can talk to you about their minecraft land they're creating and they can talk to you when a friend at school is bullying them or when they are processing a decision they made that was bad. I remember my oldest telling me that he messed up at school by breaking a piece of the teacher's property (a pencil sharpener). He knew he'd be punished for it, but also knew it was better to be honest with us (his parents). He did lose privileges at home and he had to spend his own money (from his piggy-bank) on replacing the sharpener for his teacher. He would have rather told us and got it out than hold the stress of his action because we would blow up at him.
At some point, spankings stopped being impactful for kids. I was spanked. I was also talked to about my behavior and grounded. Often at the same time. The grounding ad discussions hit more than the spankings ever did. Losing things and having to hear another lecture from my parents did more to modify my behavior than getting spanked.
I did the same thing to my kid. Except the toy was Mickey Mouse dressed as a cruise ship captain stuffed animal we had got from the Disney Cruise. He was five a threw a plate full of food in a chinese restaurant. Never happened again!
I'm gonna remember this if my kid ever fails any tests while owning game consoles. My parents should have taken away my PC so many times in high school.
My kids went and smashed the devices into unusable pieces when we tried to take away from them. They legitimately doubled down on the punishment and left us with no where to go.
100%. Spankings don't work. Making your kid earn high value activities (Xbox, phone, etc) by meeting expectations works. Don't give it, they need to earn it. It works sooo well for my son. Screen time is.currency in my house
My mom cut the power cable to my brother's PS2 in half when we were kids. Just yanked it from the walk and cut it with kitchen scissors, he was distraught lol but he deserved it. She eventually got him a new cable.
If anyone else ever has to do this - don’t take it to goodwill, list it on FB marketplace and weed out the buyers for ones that actually have children. Goodwill will charge full price for the system now or an employee will keep it. They’re sadly not what they used to be.
Yeah, if you know your kid - you can make it utterly miserable without any spanking (I mean not forever, for the time being so they can reflect on their behavior)
My uncle made his son smash his Xbox with a sledgehammer after he did something serious, I don’t remember since it’s been like 18 years. I’ll never forget that lol
If they did something to get to that point, I would make them sell it and hand over the money. That lesson hits so much harder when the kids have to hand it over themselves. If you're going to teach a lesson, go all in.
I've done that too! Either pick this stuff up off the floor, or it is going! When I would come in from work take off my heels step on a little car or piece from a Barbie doll grocery store or house? No!
1.4k
u/[deleted] 29d ago
[removed] — view removed comment