Creative Punishments

[djk42]

I think that punishment should "fit the crime" and include discipline, but there are things that I think just need to be punished. A child who knows the rules and breaks them consistently, just to test the waters, needs to be punished to see that there are consequences to her actions. When she hurts someone else, just to be mean, then I believe punishment is an appropriate form of teaching, just as speeding will earn a hefty ticket.

Problem: I don't know how to punish effectively! She is beyond the age of time outs working well as a form of punishment (we still use them for discipline however), and going to bed early has not worked well for us. She has nothing we can take away from her that would not hurt the whole family. What has worked for you for an almost 7yr old? She is my high needs child, and I own the spirited child book and workbook, but I never made it past the fussy baby book before I ran out of time. Any tips to help me make it through the week? She broke her brother's glasses today just because. I sent her to clean the living room and told her we'd deal with it after my next class (I teach dance in an hour). I am cooling off right now, because I am VERY angry and not too happy with either of them for fighting to begin with or her for taking them and breaking them (he set them on the table while fighting with her so the wouldn't break!). TIA!!!

[Laurisa]

Have you tried having her work off the price of the new glasses.

Jonas destroyed a book at school because he thought it was funny. I replaced it with another book. The book cost me three dollars. He understands coins so I told him it was 12 quarters and made a chart. Each time he did a chore for me we put an x in one of the boxes. Now Jonas is 3 so his chore was to put forks at everyones plate on the table or to get stuff out of the pantry while I cooked. Little chores.

It isn't a deterent yet for us but he did learn that everything costs money. With an almost 7 yo. setting the table for a dollar. Empty or load the dishes (with supervision). Mom used to make us dust the furniture and fold laundry. If we didn't do it right we had to start all over again.

Just a thought.

[SusanH]

I would definitely have her contribute somehow to purchasing the new ones, either through her own money if she has it or work for psuedo-pay (extra chores or maybe some volunteer work, sort of like doing community service?) if she doesn't.

You've posted before about what a challenge your dd can be, so I'm not sure what I can suggest that you probably haven't already tried. Is she reading and writing well yet? A letter of apology to her brother might be in order.

[Warpedmom2000]

We were talking about this today here at work. The punishment for me that I remember the most and was most effective for me, I would do anything to avoid it was...sweeping the carpet. My mom got very frustrated with me not cleaning my room. If I didn't get it cleaned and vacuumed in a certain amount of time, I lost the use of the vacuum. I had to sweep the darn carpet. It didn't take much for me to clean my room after that.

[hedra]

I know you've bee trying different things, and it is still a challenge. Have you considered counseling for her? She's pretty old for doing vindictive acts just to get her point across. It might be worth a short run of family counseling to see if having an 'expert' come in and observe what kinds of things get her started, learn how she thinks, and see what kinds of 'holes' there are in her processing, so they can guide you with how to bridge the gaps and teach the structures she needs. MUCH more important than punishments.

What I'm seeing is that she's more motivated to get her feelings expressed as directly as possible (vindictive/mean) than she is to be cooperative or kind. Punishments don't seem to help, and consequences aren't doing the trick. If they're not WORKING, then my suggestion is to stop TRYING to make them work. You're just banging yourself on her brick wall, and making no progress that way. You need a different KIND of solution, in that case. I don't know which kind, but someone trained to find solutions for problems might be a better bet, especially if you can bring them in, let them see the situation (even if you have to video tape it), and see what they have to offer.

(Though I'd still make her pay for the glasses, either in items/time lost to equal the cost, and mark it off on a chart so she can see the duration of loss, or cost comparable to the extent of loss in some way.)

Speaking of video taping, that was ONE solution we tried with my neice that REALLY worked. She isn't really super challenging, but she has areas - especially emotionally badgering people, whining, and throwing fits, especially at Grandma's house. My mom just borrowed the video camera and every time she started up on something, she got the camera to start taping. Since my neice was PERFECTLY aware of what she was doing, she stopped instantly every time the camera came out. She was fully capable of feeling ashamed of her actions, but only when there was an external possibility of someone ELSE seeing how awful she was being... or even having to watch herself! My mom's proposed use of the tape was first to let her see herself being mean, and ask her what she thought of it (no coaching - not 'let's see if you'd want to be friends with a girl like that!' just 'I want you to see yourself and see what you think'). If that didn't stop it, then she'd be able to hand the tapes to my bro and SIL to take to a family counselor to ask for ideas. However, it never went that far. The whole IDEA that her actions were not transitory, that the bad stuff wouldn't just be poof erased by time, the surety that her negative behavior could be captured and retained forever, was more than enough to stop her. She still backslides now and then, but all my mom has to do is turn to me and ask if I've still got my video camera available, because it looks like it is time to start filming her fits again.

Anyway, that's an option. But the counseling is a real bit of advice, too - you have a daughter who is more than typically challenging, you may need ideas from a professional to help you manage her behavior and teach/guide her toward behavior that will help her more than hurt her in the long run.

Last thought... ALWAYS keep in mind that the feelings she's getting everyone else to feel are the ones she has that feel overwhelming to her. So if you're feeling powerless, hurt, infuriated, at a loss, confused, etc., that's how she's feeling, too. If she broke her brother's glasses, how he felt (wounded, betrayed, devestated, sick, etc.) is how she felt when she did it. She's probably feeling her emotions very strongly (hormone shift?), and doesn't have the internal coping process to manage them effectively, so she's getting everyone else to do it for her. Modeling those feelings yourself, and showing that YOU know how to cope with those feelings may help her figure out how to cope with them herself. That's going to be a challenge if your reaction to her outbursts/behavior is confusion, anger, and frustration... she sees that the right/only reaction to those feelings is confusion, anger, and frustration. This is one of the BIGGEST challenges of parenting, and I quite honestly blow it on a regular basis. But when I decide I really have to buckle down and deal with just X emotion, all the time, I can usually get enough of a pattern going that I can coach my kids through it, both verbally and by reacting myself in the most effective (rather than most reactive) way. It does help, when I can do it. It just takes putting most every other process of parenting on the back burner and highlighting just the target area for a few days (usually no more than 3-4).

Good luck!

[hedra]

Oh, and last tip... simplify the rules, and make them hierarchical. That is, we have only three (okay four) house rules.

Every action of every person in our house must pass these tests, in the following order:

Safe
Respectful
Kind

If it isn't safe, it doesn't get to happen. If it is safe but not respectful, it doesn't get to happen. If it is safe and respectful but isn't kind, it doesn't get to happen.

Instead of telling them the rule, I ask ask ask - is that safe respectful and kind? Yes or no? Why do you think it is? Why do you think I disagree? The short form is: "What are the three rules?" And I ask them to stop and think about what they're doing. Not me telling them what exact behaviors are allowed or are not allowed, but them having to place their behavior within that structure on their own analysis. After all, I'm not going to be around all the time to make up new rules for new situations! These three fit nearly everything.

Then there's rule four, which my brother proposed in response to his daughter (mentioned above), who is sneaky about doing what she wants within the strict guidelines, but not thinking about consequences in light of what she would prefer... and that is:

Is it PRUDENT? (Will this make things better or worse as the days go on? Are there consequences from this that will not help matters later?)

So, there's the three rules, and then there's the addendum. Most of the time, you'll catch everything with the first three - if they're squidgying around a bit even then, you add the addendum.

The more I make them work for it, the better they do - that is they have to figure out if they broke the rules, not me. It sets up the patterns of thought better, at least for the kinds of kids I have. And for emergencies, I don't ask, but I do just state the rule - NOT SAFE! Is our 'STOP/NO!' statement. For most respectful/kind issues, you've got time to ask.

The other thing I do with Gabe a lot (which may or may not apply or you may have tried it), is ask him to just pause, observe the outcome (how does everyone feel now? What do you think they're feeling? Look at their faces and see!), and then observe how that makes him feel. Then I do the same thing when he's done something good, something that makes others happy or makes him feel proud of himself. Both situations, I ask him to notice how he feels, and tell him that those feelings are his body and mind's way of helping him make choices about how to behave. Again, I try to make the motivator/demotivator something they carry WITHIN them, not something I have to apply from the outside. It vastly reduces the work I have to do. And I'm really just aiming for the least-energy-drain parenting I can, LOL! Okay, so it takes some energy NOW, but down the road, I expect to be doing a lot less management, compared to most parents... (yeah, putting in energy now so I can be lazy later... )

[Carolyn]

Hedra and I have the same rules pretty much.

I learned my lesson with my now eleven year old who sounds very much like your dd.

I was giving her consequences...didn't work, made them different, didnt work, made them harsher, more punishment, got mad, yelled..didn't work. Then I was watching Dr. Phil(not a big fan but I happened to be watching) and he said to someone "how's that working for you?" about something totally unrelated. I applied it to several problems I had in my life including my dd's behaviour and realised that what I had been doing wasn't working form me(or her) and to make matters worse I was doing more and more of what wasn't working all the time.

So I stopped. I went and got some gentle discipline books. I read and researched but basically I stopped reacting to her behaviour and changed some things that led to her behaviour. I tried to prevent her from getting angry and then acknowledged her feelings when she did.

I also took her to 10 sessions with a child therapist so she could help her learn how to cope with some other issues(learning disability, her father not being in touch etc.)

She was about 7 or 8 at the time. She's now eleven and doing much better, not perfect but neither am I.

1. check her diet and make sure she gets lots of exercise, fresh air
2. talk to her about little things all day. Look for possible stressers and acknowledge them before hand.
3. Never punish or get mad...difficult but this cut out all dishonesty and lying to get away with something. She would be afraid and lie which would compound the problem.
4. time outs were now called cool-downs and I tried to get her to go to her room and cool down before she got too mad.
5. Acknowledge that she knew right from wrong but her impulse control was delayed and she needed to learn to "stop" and breath and be mindful of decisions.
6. relieve myself of the guilt..what was I doing wrong. I wasn't doing anything wrong...I just didn't know what to do.

There is more but basically I worked on the relationship...I took her out, spent time with her alone doing things she loved..I hugged her more, teased her, played with her a lot more. and it was all unconditional. I also forgave her immediately and made sure to never be seen to withhold love no matter what. I would express disappointment but we would talk and discuss and hug and that was it.

The behaviours slowly decreased. She has been awesome for a couple years. She only acts up when her dad calls after disappearing for a while, breaks a promise etc. etc.

Good luck!

[Patti]

Oh I know this sounds somewhat bad but appropriate guilt can be a good deterrent. Make sure she comes with you to order the new glasses for her brother. Explain to the tech that ds needs a new pair of glasses because your dd broke them. She will likely feel extremely guilty but probably won't show it. The lesson is that it is unpleasant to destroy things because people will know what she did and she will at some point be accountable for her actions.

The extra chores to work off paying for the glasses are also important to show her that everything has a consequence and that she must learn to control her destructive behavior.

The guilt thing I mentioned above I think is effective because my mom used this on me and it was incredibly effective. As a 5-year old child, I hit my sis in the chin with a wooden play hammer in one of my childhood fits of rage. This required an ER visit. My mom told nearly every nurse or doctor who asked what happened that her oldest daughter hit her younger daughter with a toy hammer. I still recall the way the doctors and nurses looked at me like I was a horrible person. It really brought home the lesson that I needed to control my temper if I wanted others to like me - a good lesson to learn because it is true.

[djk42]

Patti-
She hit her sister when she was four and Ab needed an ER visit too! When we went in though, I just said that Ab "got hit" and they asked me who hit her (with a "we're about to call CPS voice") when B confessed. I was trying to spare her the condemnation a bit. Of course, this year Ab is four and she hit her brother and he had to get "glued back together" so we now say that four year old girls are not to be messed with! *LOL*

[djk42]

Thank you ladies so much. I am trying to use a few ideas at a time, but I am referring back to this page. B is a lot like me, which makes it so hard to know how to handle her. I was afraid to disobey, but her other actions are a lot like mine. I am trying to imagine how she feels a lot more, and it is helping me approach discipline more calmly.