When I am a parent, I want to find appropriate punishments for my children when they misbehave. You need to find a punishment that fits the crime and that teaches the child why what he or she did was wrong. I think one of the greatest examples of this was what my freshman roommate's mom did to discipline her ten-year-old son.
He had been caught at school writing profanities on the walls of the school in permanent marker. Not only was he writing these profanities, he was misspelling them. As punishment, his mother made him write (and spell correctly) profanities all over his own bedroom walls. Then, he had to live in his defiled room for a week. After the week, he had to completely repaint his room so that there was no trace of the profanity.
I think that this was brilliant. It taught the boy the following:
1) The importance of correct spelling, no matter what the circumstance.
2) The fact that profanity on walls makes a place ugly, and it is unpleasant to have to live in a place so defiled.
3) The fact that it takes a lot of work to clean up that sort of vandalism.
Daltongirl, I wish you the best of luck finding appropriate punishments for your children's sins.
6 comments:
What, beating them senseless isn't an appropriate punishment?
so you don't know me and I don't know you but I just gotta comment. that is the greatest punishment ever. One time my brother played with matches and then he had to strike and blow out a whole ecomomy size box of matches. It took hime hours and he never played with matches again but it compares nothing to obscenities on the wall.
Bedelia, I may not know you, but I know where you come from and you're more than welcome here. Did you happen to click on the link to Daltongirl's blog? Because if you didn't, then it's really coincidental that she needs to punish her son for playing with matches, and someone suggested that she have him light a thousand matches to get over it. Of course, if you did link over to her blog, your comment is very apropos.
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Oh, it's apropos either way.
I think that's the best punishment ever.
I'm sort of really looking forward to the "concocting devious natural consequences for when my children do bone-headed things" aspect of parenthood. Does that make me a bad person?
Actually, don't answer that.
It's all about learning.
Tonight, I almost left my pre-schooler locked inside the grocery store's post office after he ran away and shut the door after himself.
His punishment was being able to see me from the mail slot but not being able to get to me.
I took my time finding someone with a key.
Fantastic ideas. One for the file.
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