Who said parenting was easy? I’m not a parent envious of those with multiple children and having to establish a punishment to all of them, either on a case by case basis or all of them all at one time. When I was growing up, the punishment was clear and there was a fear of parents. When you were sent for a switch, please don’t tell me that I’m now of a certain age where the phrase “get a switch” is a foreign language to you. If it is, please let me know in the comments. Anyway, when you were either sent for a switch or to get the big belt, you knew it was for something you did that did not agree with what your parent(s) THOUGHT you should have been doing. And if you don’t know the difference, please let me know in the comments.
Flash forward to 2019, telling a child to get you a belt, leads to so many questions and criticism from other parents you converse with or even should a child dare, tells another adult and brings up a panic or anxiety that authorities will be in your business. [And this is why we have so many misbehaved kids that turn into adults that shoot up schools – I’m just saying] So since it’s frowned upon to punish your children with objects that were used on us and we’re still alive to tell the story, here are a few other ways that we can establish a punishment to children and we can not feel so bad, we’ll actually have a little fun along the way.
🗣 PARENTS! How does your child know they are on punishment?
Me: acknowledging punishment, and for how long. And removing all electronic devices. #parenting #nycmoms #momblogger #dadblogger
— simplykatricia (@simplykatricia) January 21, 2019
Punishment #1:
Remove all electronic devices from the access of the punished child. This includes, all laptops, tablets, phones, watches, game systems. Side note: if punished child requires to go on a laptop or tablet to complete a homework assignment, this is okay as long as you the parent are monitoring the site and time limit the child is using the tablet…being over their shoulder – they don’t like this but sounds fun to me.
While you have removed all activity they received from electronic devices, re-introduce them to activities that force them to use their brain in that New York mental math way. We had her making pancakes as per a recipe and following the 1/3 cup of this and 1/2 a cup of that. Imagine that we couldn’t find one or other of the measuring cups. She figured it out, and we ate somewhat edible pancakes.
Punishment #2:
A friend of mine showed us on Facebook that she took out a jigsaw puzzle and had her son figuring it out on his own. I said that’s a great idea. I love jigsaw puzzles, she loves puzzles on her electronic devices. So we took out the 500 piece puzzle and go to put it together. Defining what is a 90-degree angle to know the points of the puzzle and then creating the border was a task that she still did not get the patience for. Somehow, she is able to do the same type of puzzle online. So continuing on with her punishment, she has to find the edge pieces and take her time to put it together. We didn’t get very far today, but there’s always next weekend when this punishment will continue onto.
Punishment #3:
National Geographic, National Geographic Wild. When I was growing up, we would watch the nature channels that came on PBS in the science class and would be bored out of our minds. I thought if we must watch tv, this channel would be perfect. Who knew that this channel was far from a punishment. We all were sitting there looking at the animals, and the process of living excited for the next scene. I’ll have to look into this punishment, but without knowing it, she now knows a little bit more about animal life than she did before this punishment. So maybe we did something right.
The ultimate goal that we established without our punishment to our child was to remove all things that SHE enjoys and replace them with something that we would like for her to do more of. Without electronics, she finished a book she was supposed to finish a week ago, she learned more about animals and insects while only being able to watch the nature channels, and she also rested her brain. Without her eyes being fixed on a screen, watching other children play in those YouTube channels, she was creating her own storyline in the homework assignments that she did without a problem.
And we did this all without having her go get a belt or a switch.
Do you have a punishment that you give to your children?
