what do you take away or threaten to take away

[luvmyfam444]

from your child(ren)when they misbehave?

 

[mom2boys]

Electronics - including video game system, hand held video game system, tv, computer games....
This is more effective on my 12 yr old than my 10 yr old.

 

[cinmell]

A favorite toy or take away a special treat we were planning on.

 

[jonestavern]

Electronics - including video game system, hand held video game system, tv, computer games....
This is more effective on my 12 yr old than my 10 yr old.

we call this 'electrical restriction' here

Jean

 

[RUDisney]

I've mentioned this on other threads. We have a penalty box. I sat down with the kids and we came up with penalties to go on papers inside of the box. These range from going to bed at 8:00 to no computer for a week, to cleaning up after dinner for a week, etc. There are 3 mercy cards in the box. These say, "if you are truly sorry, you are forgiven," "pay $.50 for forgiveness," (that goes into the collection plate at church) and "go to your room, say three prayers and be forgiven."

The beauty of the penalty box is that they never know what they're going to get. It's fear of the unknown for them, and it's a good deterent. The only problem is that sometimes they'll get a mercy card when you don't want to give them forgiveness, but you have to abide by them just the same as you would if they got a real penalty. It also helps in levying penalties, because you don't have to come up with something on the fly.

It works, and I recommend this method highly.

 

[CJMickeyMouse]

'electrical restriction'

Jean

Oh, my.... that is just PRICELESS!!!!!!

Mind if I borrow that to use with my teens???

We take away messenger of course - plus TV. Our house is usually always open to friends at all times and that can be restricted as well.

 

[disneyfan551]

My dh recently watched a Dr. Phil show which recommended taking away ALL of the children's toys for a bit! And then they were to slowly earn them back by good attitude/listening/etc... Now that would take me a while to box up every toy she has! The two that bother her the most are 1- paci (4yo and STILL uses it for sleeping! ) and 2- laying on mommy's lap before bedtime. This isn't a toy, but a ritual that is special to her, and she'll quickly stop what she's doing!

 

[3princesses4us]

Whatever means the most to that particular child. For my 5 year old, losing TV is devastating, for my social 7 year old, I send her to her room by herself- it's her worst scenario. She loves being with people. If I did that to the 5 year old, she'd happily play by herself for hours so it wouldn't be much of a punishment for her. It's funny how different they all are...

 

[mickeyboat]

Finding a "currency" for our kids has been a challenge. We have used a marble jar in the past which has been effective when I am consistent. Right now our currency is time outs / early bed time. The kids hate time outs and being away from the rest of us. The threat of going to bed 15 minutes early, and losing cuddle time has gotten us out of the house on time for over a week, now.

Denae

 

[Aidensmom]

We for the most part use more of a reward system than a punishment system, geared towards the behaviors my son is having problems with.

He gets rewards like a quarter in a jar when he has no time-outs at school, he can watch TV if he cleans his room, etc.

He did go through a stage where he would throw things when he got mad, and then we took away anything that was thrown.

 

[BabyTigger99]

Either their birthdays or Christmas!

 

[bicker]

I've got a related question. My understanding is that the best advice has been to never threaten if you're not prepared to carry-through on the threat. I had a brief discussion about this with someone recently, during which he indicated quite the opposite -- that carrying through on some threats would cause his son to make everyone else miserable. I (uncharacteristically) kept my perspective to myself.

What do you think?

Assuming that I take this person at his word about the effect, and accept without reservation his perspective that the priority was to guard against what the son would do if a threat was carried-through on, wouldn't the best approach to simply acknowledge that you cannot threaten?

 

[asta]

When our girls were small, we used the same "penalty box" that RUDisney described. We sat down with the girls ahead of time and together came up with the penalty items. Even though the punishments were small items, my girls were terrified of the box. I kept the box after we stopped using it and my seventeen year old gets the biggest kick out of reading the items in the box.

 

[anewvance]

For us it's dessert. The girls get a little something for dessert every night like jello or applesause or a gogart. If they misbehave, they have it taken away for the night...

 

[Aidensmom]

I've got a related question. My understanding is that the best advice has been to never threaten if you're not prepared to carry-through on the threat. I had a brief discussion about this with someone recently, during which he indicated quite the opposite -- that carrying through on some threats would cause his son to make everyone else miserable. I (uncharacteristically) kept my perspective to myself.

What do you think?

Assuming that I take this person at his word about the effect, and accept without reservation his perspective that the priority was to guard against what the son would do if a threat was carried-through on, wouldn't the best approach to simply acknowledge that you cannot threaten?

If you don't carry through on threats, they are meaningless, and it only takes a couple of times for a kid to figure that out. Perhaps your friend needs to come up with more realistic threats if he is going to use them.

 

[Marseeya]

For DD it's TV (& everything attached to it) and computer.

For DS it's cell phone, TV, computer, grounding, sometimes confined to his room.

It's a little different for both kids, but they're usually allowed to earn things back for good behavior/attitude. DD maybe gets in trouble once every few months, and when she loses privileges it's only for a day, so she typically doesn't earn them back. DS gets in trouble constantly, so we have to do things a little differently with him. We try our best to use a combination of positive reinforcement and negative consequences, but we're not always spot on with it. We try.

 

[SwedishMeatball]

With our 16 year old daughter the cell phone works like a charm. With our 7 year old son, well nobody is going to believe me, but he is such an easy going and good little boy that I have never had to consider those types of measures. Of course he's not perfect, but he really does well at minding. So far just a word and he corrects himself. My mom says just wait, his time will come.

 

[tkd lisa]

I have two kids (13 and 12). I do a combination of positive and negative.

The positive is for doing things. I have a chart, with the things they are expected to do in a grid with days across the top. It's their responsibility to mark when they "make bed, do homework (double marks if it's done before I get home!), put away clothes, teeth/face/hair cleaned, etc." And I'll offer checks for things like folding the laundry (their responsibility to put away their own clothes), taking out the trash, etc. They get a quarter for each mark. No mark, no money. Even if I know they did it. I told them I don't get paid if I don't turn in my timesheet!

For bad behavior, I take away electronics mainly. DD is addicted to a message board for her favorite show, so that's PAINFUL to her! For DS it's usually play station.

 

[laura001]

My policy is to never threaten, it is just a fact and will happen when they require a punishment. It would be: computer, tv and the car

 

[cheerful chickadee]

when ds is on home punishment we take away the tv, internet, video games, football and basketball cards, mini basketball hoop and usually a few other toys too depending on how bad the offense was. Right now he's on punishment for some unacceptable behavior at school and since it's been 2 weeks with no improvement (and we received another bad behavior report from school Friday) not only is his punishment extended but we took away the last few things he had access to so now all he's got are books and his radio, and his trumpet that he HAS to practice. The teacher and I discussed a new behavior modification plan this weekend so hopefully the punishment and school plan will improve and he can begin earning his privileges back.

I like the penalty box idea though, the going to bed early one is good! That would kill ds. What other penalties would work?