My kid used to destroy school material for no apparent reason, pencils, rubbers and so on and on. So this 2nd year of school for him we invented a new punishment, Bart Simpson style, make him write a whole page saying he won't ruin the material. We have only done this once, but it seems to be working because he hated it. Have you tried something similar?
Yes, we feel accountability for cleaning up messes is key. You can punish your child but the worst torture seems to be when they have to clean it up. The best story we had that I wasn't sure how to handle was not our child but actually the neighbors. She decided to draw pictures all over the outside of our house. I honestly think she thought it would beautify it so it was hard to know what to do. We tried to explain that it is best to create works of art on paper, and not on already painted walls that people have paid to paint that way. Then we had her scrub it all off. I wasn't sure if that was the best way to handle it or not, but your post makes me feel better that others have taken that approach as well. She never did it again anyways. I probably ruined her life as a graffiti artist, but it was worth it to not come home to stick people on the outside of my house.
I grew up writing lines all the time in school and at home. It wasn't exactly a difficult punishment, but it definitely got the point across. I haven't made my kids do it, but I can definitely see it being useful down the road. It makes me wonder though, do my parents have books filled with "I will not do blah blah blah" just hanging around in a pile somewhere?
Now that I recall, I used to do worse with my rubbers, but now I am a parent... I can't recall I ever receive this punishment, but sometimes we reach a point we don't know what else to do. The aim is not have a book filled with that, but just that he does it a few times to realize it's a dead end, he can't do it anymore.
I think I filled a few books with lines. It was a popular method of punishment at my school and at home when I was a kid. I still have terrible handwriting! I don't think it ever deterred me from anything, though. Mostly, it just made me try to be more secretive to delay having to write lines. Surely, science has created a better punishment than from days of yore. Can you take technology away from him?
Let's just say I was a slow learner when it came to punishment. I don't think anyone ever got punished to have to fill the whole book, but those lines all add up. I think it's a pretty sensible punishment honestly, it definitely gets the message through.
Yeah, I think it's a good one. Just yesterday the kid managed to chew is pencil. He came through and told me, so points for him for being honest. He was afraid I would not take him to football (soccer) practice, but I did take him and instead when he arrived home he just did the punishment. I think he's learning like this.
Lol, that is a cleaver idea if it works for you. It's unconventional in the sense that its not a time out or a spanking. It's mind-numbing boredom (and a hand cramp from all the writing) that did the trick! When I was a kid and I acted up what worked well for me was taking things away especially watching my favorite TV shows.
Yes, we tried that and punishments before, but it wasn't too effective, so this is working fine. So far he only had 3 of these punishments, 1st time he wrote one page, the 2nd 2 pages and the 3rd - 3 pages. Let's see what he's going to write down 4 pages, hopefully nothing!
