Creative Punishment

I am sure that everyone has seen stories like this all over the news in the past couple of years. It is kind of hard not to miss because we are in such a plugged-in world out there. The difference in this article and some of the others we have seen is that the parents are getting bad attention for what they are doing to their child. I actually applaud this type of punishment.

Think about how the world works now for the older children. Everyone has a social media site, so they pretty much can talk to anyone they want and exchange information over the net. I saw a ten year old with an iPhone of his own the other day. My mother told me that she sees children the school she works at bring out cameras and just snap pictures all the time now without teachers punishing them. Now, remember all of this when I tell you about what a teacher of tenth graders told me.

He walks into the classroom a few minutes before the class needs to really start, so he told the kids to talk quietly among themselves while he did a couple of things that needed to get taken care of and write some math problems on the board. While doing so, he heard this conversation between two of his students, and I am just calling him Teacher for the sake of privacy:

Student 1: So, what did your mom do?
Student 2: She ground me for two weeks man.
Student 1: Aw, well guess you can't come to my house then.
Student 2: Yea, I can't, but we can still play on Xbox tonight. Mom said that I just can't leave the house. (At this point, Teacher is shocked because he remembers back in the day being grounded meant much more than just not going anywhere,and continues to write as while the kid continues to speaks more about his "punishment") She also said I have to eat dinner with the family instead of in my room (Which I was pissed off about as someone who wants the kids to NEVER eat outside of the kitchen) and I cannot talk on the phone past eleven anymore.
Student 1: She taking your phone man?
Student 2: Nah, I can still text but she said I can't talk on it.

At this point, Teacher is confused. How is this kid being punished? he thought to himself. A third student comes in at this point and hands him a note from another teacher because he was held over late. Student 3 proceeds to go over to Student 2 and HIGH FIVES the kid while saying "Dude, heard you got two weeks for getting caught smoking! Awesome! Lemme know when you are allowed out so we can hang." Teacher then becomes more furious as ALL of the students in his classroom treat the child like it is a badge of honor to get grounded, congratulating him for being so awesome and that they should totally hang out later. It took every ounce of his willpower to not lecture the children on how punishment is suppose to work, because it is really not his place. However, he was very vocal with me later on it.

"Remember when we were kids and sent to our rooms? Even though we had a TV we knew to not turn that on or we would get our asses tore up," he ranted. I could almost see him there, shaking with anger and eyes full of rage just from the tone of voice on his phone. "This kid, basically cannot leave the house, but everything else he can do. And the other kids? They are just as bad. If they get grounded, they don't care. They think it is pretty awesome to be in trouble."

"It was going on when we were kids too dude," I said.

"Yea, but the difference is that if our parents found out about it, we would get it worse than what we got," he said, which is true because several people we knew had that happen. "I have a feeling that parents just don't care anymore. They just don't want to parent. I swear when my kid gets older this will not happen."

"Well just stick to your guns bud," I laughed, knowing when we both have teenagers we might change our tune, but later on I thought about it. These parents, the ones sticking their kids with having to be humiliated as punishment are actually pioneers in a familiar territory other parents have forgotten. Back when I was a kid, all the kids in the neighborhood knew you were being punished because your mother would tell them. If you were caught even talking to them out of the window of your house, even just waving at them, you would get a worse punishment. Now, if your friends find out that you are grounded, most of the time you are congratulated by your peers and made out like a hero. Not allowed to play the Xbox? Dude, sweet punishment. Mom took your phone? Nice bro! Dad said you aren't allowed on the computer? Good going! It is like children are trying to get a worse punishment than their peers to impress them.

People blame this on the break down of not being able to spank their kids, but it really isn't just that. With the technology that is available now, it actually is really difficult for a parent to successfully punish an older child. If you spank your child, they immediately fly to the social media sites and tell everyone that you beat them, which could get you a lovely visit from DHS if the right people read it. The kids know this, which means spanking is out. Sending your kid to bed without supper because they misbehaved means that the kids can go to school and tell the teacher that Mom and Dad didn't feed them last night, which also can get you an afternoon tea date with a social worker. When you decide that your child cannot leave their room for the night, they can just go to school and tell people their parents locked them up all night. It is almost terrifying to know that adults are more afraid of their children now because children know they can get parents arrested.

So, the simple solution to this problem is what the parents in that article are doing. You have to humiliate them. Not just take away everything that the kid likes to do, but truly humiliate them. Instead of just not letting them go to their friends on the weekend, make sure that all of his or her friends know that they are cleaning around the house if they call. Have the child do yard work and call the other parents to bring the kids by to PLAY on gaming systems while they are outside working or in their room being punished. Let all the kids know that if they talk to the child and the child answers, they will be taken home and the parents will punish them as well. Make the punishment for the child so humiliating and lasting that they will not want to do anything like what they did again.What you are doing is not breaking any laws, the kids cannot say anything to anyone because they know that everything was perfectly sound as a punishment. It does not sound fair, but you cannot play fair as a parent. No one wants to be that parent when they grow up, but you don't realize that the only way to really teach your children anything is to become something that you never thought you could be: your own parents.