Creative Punishments

            Today’s topic is brought to you courtesy of me feeling the need to stay with a theme in my writing. I wrote paper #4 on school start times for teenagers and in staying with the teenager theme of the night I ran across a news article on creative punishments for teenagers and ran with it.

            We’re all familiar with the “standard” punishments, ie. extra chores, loss of privileges, so on and so forth; but what about when those things get you nowhere but frustrated. I don’t know how many times between my kids and the many other teenagers I’ve interacted with over time I’ve seen eyes rolled, the “I don’t care” line, or the “I know she won’t actually enforce this” act.  I’ve found two big schools of thought on the internet as I’ve looked tonight, both seem reasonable in their own right.

            One involves being constructive instead of yelling, lecturing or criticizing. I can see where this might be effective, although the negative versions can be temporarily stress relieving, they do sometimes lead to feelings of guilt and punishments that are too steep or radical and likely to be overturned rapidly. This article suggests using the lines, “we’ve got a problem here; let’s find asolution” and “you will figure it out and I will help you.” Now I can say as Mom to two teenagers that the first time you use these lines you’ll be met with shock, but I can see the potential benefit for using this method. The article goes on to suggest encouragement of open dialogue in a calm and non-judgmental environment. It fosters learning for both you and your teen. This article also suggests that rather than grounding your teen from something, ground them to do a chore with you. For example pulling weeds, apparently this rather than fostering resentment will put things in perspective for both of you. And also recommends keeping incidents in perspective overall, a minor mishap does not a major catastrophe make. These are all solid and decent tips in my book.

            Now onto the article that grabbed my interest. Apparently Quandria Bryant a North Carolina ninth-grader had been making choices that made her a real life “mean girl” that felt life was all about her, which included her being suspended for being disrespectful to her teachers. So her father came up with a creative punishment that involved her being embarrassed but unharmed, he gave her a sign to carry as she walked up and down a busy Highway near her school. On one side it read “I have a bad attitude I disrespect people who try to help me” and on the other it said “I do what I want, when I want, how I want it.” She apparently declined to talk to the reported but has reportedly decided to change her ways. Her dad isn’t the first parent to go this route. I also foundTrenton’s story, at 15 Trenton’s grades were well below what his parents expected and knew he was capable of, so after trying traditional punishments and being met with a brick wall as well as making sure there weren’t any physical or mental problems causing his refusal to bring up his grades Trenton’s parents had him stand on a street corner for two hours holding a sign that said he was failing algebra and English, on the other side it said “my future = shaky.” His parents stated that they wanted an out of the box punishment to grab his attention, and failing that it would be practice for the “will work for food” sign he’d be holding in a few years.

            Interesting reading on net tonight for sure, also food for thought next time I need a creative punishment for one of my teenagers. J