What do you do when your older kids misbehave? You can’t put them in time out anymore and sending them to their room won’t do it.
It’s enough to make you wish your kids were 4 again.
We had to punish our 10-year-old this week and our solution was to take away computer access, TV and play dates for a week.
But this turned out to be harder than you might think. One day, we had to sit for a friend’s kids and the next day they sat for ours. So much for taking away play dates.
Then today I caught my son watching television after I warned him not to turn it on. So he lost his dessert.
Tonight the poor kid can’t watch TV, cant’ play on the computer and can’t have dessert. He told me that there is nothing to do and I had taken away all his fun. He also shouted that I was mean and he hates me. Welcome to my world.
As I write this, he has been whining about his dessert for about half an hour. I explained that he is being punished for deliberately disobeying me about 28 minutes ago. Now I’m done and I’m just letting him whine it out.
In fact, I am beginning to see the power of taking away dessert. We could have saved ourselves all the trouble of taking away the computer and TV and the play dates and just taken away dessert for a week. That seems to be the most effective punishment we can dish out.
Still, I’m getting tired of all this crying and whining. I would send him to bed without his supper but it’s too late for that. Putting him in the corner won't work either. Maybe I can send him to his room for a while – just until he’s 18. I’m sure he’ll stop whining by then.
Art from What do you do when your older kid misbehaves? You can’t put them in time out anymore and sending them to their room won’t do it.
It’s enough to make you wish your kids were 4 again.
We had to punish our 10-year-old this week and our solution was to take away computer access, TV and play dates for a week.
But this turned out to be harder than you might think. One day, we had to sit for a friend’s kids and the next day they sat for ours.
Then today I caught my son watching television after I warned him that he would lose his dessert if the TV went on.
So tonight the poor kid can’t watch TV, cant’ play on the computer and can’t have dessert. He told me that there is nothing to do and I had taken away all his fun. It also led him to shout that I was mean and he hates me.
Image from momlogic.com
As I write this, he has been whining about his dessert for about 20 minutes. I explained that he is being punished for deliberately disobeying me about 18 minutes ago. Now I’m done and I’m just letting him whine it out.
In fact, I am beginning to think we could have saved ourselves all the trouble of taking away the computer and TV and the play dates and just taken away dessert for a week. That seems to be the most effective punishment we can dish out.
Still, I’m getting tired of all this crying and whining. I would send him to bed without his supper but it’s too late for that. Maybe I can send him to his room for a while – just until he’s 18. I’m sure he’ll stop whining by then.
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