Teenagers punishment....

16 years ago

I saw on TV this morning about a teen who disregarded her curfew so as punishment, her father advertised for her to do free babysitting, 30 hrs. The father & girl were interviewed, and she said she knew she had disobeyed the rules and was OK with her punishment and was about half way through the 30 hrs. The dad said he checks out the jobs before she goes to them.

I think this is a novel way to get her attention to the house rules. Whatcha think?

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Comments (23)

gardenspice
16 years ago
As long as there are consequences, I vote "yes".
But would you be concerned leaving your kids with someone who is there because she is being punished?
dilly_dally
16 years ago
I think that a teenager who breaks curfew rules is not going to be a very good baby sitter if she is only doing it as a "punishment" and not because she wants a job with kids. What would the ad say? *Free Babysitting by an angry resentful teen who is being punished. She doesn't follow her own parent's house rules and certainly won't follow yours.*

If sounds like the father has to put in a lot of his own time and attention getting this "punishment" organized too. He has to put up ads, field all the calls, check the people out, and since she is a curfew breaker he probably has to (and should) drive her there and pick her up.

Most parents would just ground a teen who breaks curfew since that punishment is related to the crime.

If there should be extra punishment besides grounding, why not have the teen do volunteer work with an organization who would supervise her and probably teach her a new skill that goes along with the volunteer opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities for volunteer work that will where the results will make a real difference in the community. For instance our park system in my area looks for teens to volunteer to take care of the flowers. All the work is supervised.
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flyleft, My son does have ADD. He was diagnosed at the children's hospital when he was 15 and yes, it is the inattentive type. He is a very different boy with treatment and the support of a therapist. His diagnosis was rather late and many years were wasted blaming his problems on other things. I was thinking of this in context of the strong willedness of the OP's son because I would also have described my son in those terms. After we dug deeper and got his diagnosis and then got some help he started to accept that his attitude was not helping him any. He is doing much better now, is more pleasant and also seems happier. He was also a very anxious and often depressed child, very anxious young teen, before we got help for him. I even took him to a center for anxiety for almost 2 years of therapy! This was at a major university where they specialized in this sort of thing. I asked repeatedly of the therapist at the anxiety center: Is there a chance he has ADD? She insisted repeatedly: No. Well, she was wrong and when I think of the years wasted on an incorrect diagnosis I cringe. But anxiety IS part of ADD too. Lots of people, professionals included, associate ADD with destructive wild behavior and fail to realize it has other forms. So when I hear strong willed and anxious I can't help but wonder if there's more to this picture. ADD might be an issue.
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None of my kids were diagnosed ADD and I'll admit I am a bit biased regarding ADD/ADHD diagnosis because I feel it's 'overdiagnosed' and many kids that don't have it are diagnosed with it and needlessly medicated. I'm not saying your SO's son is or isn't but I have to admit my bias and lack of experience with a true ADD/ADHD situation. However, I do have three grown kids. None of them got their driver's licenses until after they were 18 and it was by their choice. I would have liked them to get it at 16 but all three of them said no. I was baffled by that but now they are all licensed drivers. My youngest is 18 and got hers last week. My sons are 19 & 21. I can also relate when you say he thinks he's an adult because he's 18. I went through this with my sons more than my daughter, but they both decided that once they were 'adults', they didn't have to follow rules, can stay out as late as they want, don't have to come home at all (or even call), etc. It's taken a lot, I mean A LOT of tough love with those two. I did not kick them out but I did lay down the law and told them if they don't abide by my rules in my house, they were welcome to leave. My older son packed up his car the day after he got it, quit his job and was going to move back to the town where all his friends were. That lasted a week and he came back, now he was jobless and when he thought he would 'kick it' at my house, not work and be a 'grown up', I let him know the rules hadn't changed. He left again and bounced from couch to couch because nobody would put up with it. My mom enabled him for a year when he begged me to come back and this time, he did get two jobs but moved out when I wouldn't let him bring a GF home. So, he left (that was about five or six months ago) and he got an apartment with a guy from work but when the guy moved, he also had to move. He joined the Army and went off to boot camp last week. I'm proud that he decided to join, even though I was not happy he did it, I'll support him. I just wonder if he's going to be able to live with their rules if he found it so hard to listen to me and mine. We'll see. My middle child is very smart. He finished HS a year early and started college. He has also had the 'I'm 18 so I'm an adult' and I gave him the same speech my older one got. He does not want to leave my home, but he also doesn't like following the rules. If I don't stay on top of it, he tests the boundaries constantly. As long as I am on top of it, he has done what I ask. Of course, he blames my husband for my consistency and I admit, I was not so consistent when they were growing up and I was a single working mother. I didn't always have the time/energy to be consistent and that, I take responsibility for. But, he is also learning through a little bit of tough love that he is a grown up when he starts acting like a grown up. We helped him get a car (because grown ups get their own cars... we made him pay for half) and it was an older car that we told him he needed to do regular maintenance, check the oil, water, etc. and he didn't. He never did anything but put gas and drive. The radiator started leaking and he continued to drive it. Now, it has been sitting in the driveway for almost two weeks because it overheats every time he drives it. He doesn't know how to fix it and he refuses to ask my husband to help him with it, which he has a right to but a grown up would have to figure it out. So, now he has mom driving him to school and picking him up (or one of his friends does). It did adjust his attitude a little when he realized he can't drive himself anymore. He also has to be reminded to do his chores (which is not much... mostly cleaning up after himself) and when he argues, I simply open the front door. He has a choice, because adults have choices. If I choose to ignore my creditors, they will take things away from me and sue me. If I choose to not pay my bills, I will be sitting in the dark with no phone or computer. If I choose not to work, I have no money for food, gas in my car, or other things we need. My daughter is a different story. She's never given me any problems but she does get into a mood where she can have an outburst and a couple hours later, says sorry & I love you. I don't know how severe your SO's son's outbursts are but I know my daughter doesn't like conflict and maybe bottles up feelings until she bursts and lets it out and then she'll feel sorry for things she says or for getting that angry and I'm concerned about that. She really needs to learn how to express herself and I think she is working on that. She doesn't like to hurt anyone's feelings so she keeps it inside when someone upsets her. In your situation, it sounds like dad has been a softy and enabled his son for a long time. When my kids were very little, my dad had a talk with me and told me that if I don't stay on top of it, I was in trouble because my kids outnumbered me. I was a single parent of 3 by the time I was 21. I was too lenient and inconsistent when they were small and by the time they were going into middle school, I was having some serious problems with them (boys). (I wasn't always as controlling as I am now, I was pretty much a doormat I think) I decided I needed to stop being so soft and I admit I parented a lot from guilt over them not having a dad around, but I stepped it up and did what I had to keep them in line. They were not happy with the changes and it was very hard because I felt guilty that I had raised them to be used to walking all over me and now I expected them to listen to me, follow stricter rules and they didn't like it one bit. (and it was hard for me to stand up and do things differently than I had done all their lives) Then, I met my husband and a year later, when he moved in, he was supportive of me and I was even more consistent than I had been. That was when my oldest son moved out... just before my husband moved in. He didn't like ME telling him what to do, he sure didn't want my husband to tell him anything (or to be supportive of me as my husband would step in if my kids try to argue: ie. 'don't talk to you mom like that' or 'your mom told you to XXXXX'.) I would say that you and SO need to stop worrying that he is never going to manage his own life because if you are worrying for him, he doesn't need to worry about that himself. If he thinks he is an adult, treat him like an adult. Adults have responsibility and rules. It's not a picnic to be an adult. I think it's funny when my SD says 'when I am 18, I'm going to eat as many twinkies as I want.' because she can't eat the whole box now. She's 9 and they think 18 is a magical age and they are somehow transformed into 'grown ups'.
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If your ex were an alcoholic, would you be tormenting yourself over whether to use the word when talking to your son? Would you worry about poisoning him against his father? No, you'd say, "Son, your father is an alcoholic. Don't get in the car with him when he's been drinking, & if he's in a rage, get away from him." Tell him right now, & use the words. It's a tremendous, tremendous relief to know that the turmoil & dread you feel isn't normal & that it isn't your fault, that there *is* a real, identifiable problem, not just a personality conflict, that you aren't a piece of totally inadequate carp who doesn't deserve to live if you don't reflect glory on another person 24 hours of every day, that credit for your achievements belongs to you & not to your parent, & *that you are not the only one*; it isn't just you. It's nicer if you can tell him when things are calm, but tell him right away regardless of whatever fit his father is throwing. "I haven't gone 'clinical' because that seemed too much like 'poisoning' DS against his father, and that's really not what I want. (Took me a while to be able to say that honestly.)" but this isn't the same as tattling to a child about a husband who betrayed you in some way. It's about arming your son against abuse. I guarantee that anyone who grows up with a narcissistic parent has low self-esteem, & if that person has no knowledge of what narcissism is, he has no way to protect himself against further battering of his emotions & his sense of self. By not telling your son that his father has this massive personality disorder, you are not only failing to protect your son, you are protecting & enabling his father.
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Nobody dares use the term "spoiled brat" anymore. It's politically incorrect. But what term better defines so many involved in this situation? A party of 10 escalated to 80, "Word quickly spread by e-mail and text". I wonder how many have jobs. I wonder if any of them know what the term "chores" means. I also wonder who pays for their cell phones. Again, we're all basing this on one article so the accuracy could be an issue but assuming it's accurate it just looks like the spoiled brat, no accountability, too much time and money on and in their hands child rearing again. Just this afternoon a guy was on the radio talking about whether parents should control cell use and texting more. A guy called in and was talking about his kid's bill. 9,000 text messages in a month. Yes, nine thousand in one month. And what does dear old Dad do? He pays the bill. "Twer it me, that kid would have my foot planted between his back pockets. But then again, it couldn't happen with me, since I would never give a kid anything more than a prepaid cell. They'd get a certain amount and be required to be available when I want to get a hold of them, beyond that they buy (read "earn") more if they want it. But I digress. The "dad" was talking about how he was able to sign up for unlimited texting and get out of the overage bill, which to me is not really fair to others. He got into the mess, he can pay for it. Do cell phones automatically make a kid a murderer? Of course not. But stats do suggest that kids with phones have more problems and the more texting, talking and the like they do, the higher incidence of alcohol abuse, drug use and more. Kids have energy to burn. That's normal. I'm a firm believer that if they're required to burn it in a positive and productive way, they're far less likely to have troubles in the negative. When you're too tired to raise hell, hell doesn't get raised as often. But seems like so many believe they'll traumatize kids by making them do something productive. And no, before a couple go off the deep end, this doesn't mean slave labor, it means responsibility. I do think TV has changed language by loosening it up a little so to speak. But then again, language used was regulated by parents in years past also. Nobody used the bathroom before Wally & the Beaver! We all wondered when Ward & June pushed the twin beds together to well, let's not go there. I'm not in total agreement though that TV, games and the like cause that much violence. I grew up with violent cartoons. Wile E. and the Roadrunner going at it never made me order Acme explosives to use on my enemies. With my luck I'd probably get the same results as Wile E. :) Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and other westerns were constantly killing people but we could differentiate, we could be entertained by the stories yet still be shocked when it's on the news or in the headlines. Again, assuming the article is accurate, I hope the ones that participated get a good long sentence at least. To me it's a good case for capital punishment. The ones standing around can't use the excuse of "I'm afraid to get involved". Dozens stood by and were all afraid? C'mon. With those numbers, which would be a minimum of six per bully, they'd probably stand a pretty good chance of holding them down until the cops got there. Then again, maybe nobody had access to a phone. That could be it. Sounds like a pretty bad set of morals instilled to me. Not really sure what can be done, sounds like it's too late now to try to teach responsibility. And when you think about it, a life would have been saved had the guy smacked the little witch back. She's the one that caused the death. But she won't be held responsible either.
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User
16 years ago
I agree with punishing her. I wouldn't want her watching my kids. I think I would have made her do something else like physical labor.
alisande
16 years ago
But would you be concerned leaving your kids with someone who is there because she is being punished?

Yes, I wouldn't be comfortable with that.

I like Dilly Dally's idea about volunteering.
mariend
16 years ago
Was this the first time? How long? Is this a small town? Because I do not know the family, it is hard to make a judgment.
dotmom
Original Author
16 years ago
Actually, if you Google....Father advertises for baby sitter.... The story comes up. When they interviewed them this morning, the girl seemed to be level headed and had a good attitude about her punishment. Some of her 'jobs' were with parents who needed to get stuff done at home and needed someone to keep the kids out of her hair for a couple hours, like a gal studying for a nursing exam, and needed some quiet time. This was somewhere in Texas.
suzieque
16 years ago
Yes, she should be punished. I like Dilly Dally's suggestion. Put her to work (pay-free, of course).
Holly_ON
16 years ago
I am a little uneasy about the embarrassing aspect of this punishment as self esteem for teens is so important. I guess curfew will have a new meaning for her so she won't repeat the mistake. Still it is a creative solution and much more caring on the father's part than a worthless warning to a teen who does not care. Hey....at least he did not advertise her services as a masseuse in our local rag!
bluejeans4ever
16 years ago
As a Mom of a 16 year old, I think it's brilliant. The humiliation factor alone is worth a million dollars. As that is what teens fear the worse, that their parents will humiliate them, and we do! Every time we are out in public and/or breathe. lol

I showed my DD the article and her face went white. tee hee At the least the Dad cares about when his dd will come home. I know so many kids who's parents probably don't even know that they've left the house for the evening!

I think the time and energy that that Dad put into advertising is a wise investment into his daughters future. AND ... he has done a huge favour to all parents of teens! I think.

My DD has a friend who was stabbed by her father because she wanted to wear the typical teenage type clothing and not the traditional garb from their country of origin.

The girl survived, and is a beautiful, extrememly intelligent young lady of 16 who is lives of fear of her father getting early parole, and he will get it.

So, I personally am all about other forms of punishment that aren't life threatening and abusive, but lesson learning!

Oh one more thing :-) Recently 2 parents took their son to every house on our street to have him apologize for the vandilizing of some public property in our area AND to offer grass cutting, and other chores as a means to make amends. There were other kids involved - and the police made the suggestion that they do this (go around apologizing and offering free labour) but this was the only kid who's parents actually did it.

You could tell that it was horribly embarrasing for all of them, but I'll bet this kid won't do anything like that again!

My big threat to my DD is that I'll go into her school wearing my bedroom slippers and a robe. She knows that I would have no problem doing this, so it keeps her in line. It's getting old now so I have to come up with a new plan. :-)

FWIW My dd is a truly great kid/person and we are immensley proud of her. She does well in school, has never violated a curfew and tells me everything that goes on at parties and will leave if she feels the situation could become dangerous / illegal / uncomfortable, etc. Her form of rebelling is that she is mouthy and beligerent at home. However, we are not fools to think that she could turn to another direction, but let her think about her Mom coming into her school in bedroom slippers and robe and hopefully she'll think twice.

BJ
carla35
16 years ago
Some people punish by taking a priviledge away (no xbox, no phone, no date Sat nite, etc). Other parents prefer to punish by making children do something extra instead... (clean the garage, scrub the shower, watch the younger siblings without being paid, etc...)

I don't understand why this story is newsworthy. Parents have been doing things like this forever... I think some of the other examples... volunteering where she may really be needed, making her pull weeds at her church, or helping out at a food drive may be a little more sensible. I'm not sure why (or if) these families need 'free' babysitting... Hopefully, she's at least helping single mothers or something. I would more likely suggest she gives the money from 30 hours of babysitting to some charity.

Again, I'm not really seeing why this story is even in the news. Are we supposed to be shocked that she's being punished, that she has to "babysit" as her punishment, that people allow her to babysit, that it's for "30" hours, that she appears to be liking it, or are we supposed to conclude that she will never do anything wrong again because of it? What exactly is the story or the shocker?
dilly_dally
16 years ago
I usually make a point of reading the news article before commenting but could not find it in a search. I used Dotmom's Key words she posted subsequenty, and found it. (Note to everyone: Please put a link in your post to reference a news story.)

I found the news story a bit odd from the get go. All of them make point of saying "Robert Rausch placed an advertisement offering his daughter's free baby-sitting services in the community newspaper in Southlake, a wealthy suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth that is home to business leaders and professional athletes."

I wonder why it was necessary to emphasize that the neighborhood is 'home to business leaders and athletes'? Could this babysitting job be a cover for something else? Why was it necessary to have a portrait photo of the pretty teenager accompany the babysitting ad? Why is the Dad doing all the work getting her these babysitting jobs instead of her going out and finding them herself as part of her punishment. If anything and the story is legit, the Dad used poor judgement in using her photo in a newpaper ad. (Who paid for this expensive ad BTW??)

This article below say the teen got in trouble for throwing an out of control party. Uh yeah, like that would be the type of babysitter one would want in their home without supervision.

I still find it odd the Dad would go through all this trouble by buying an ad in a newspaper and fielding phone calls instead of just having her do chores around the house. If the neighborhood she advertised in is so wealthy and filled with business leaders and athletes they probably already have their own nannies and au pair and would not need to take a risk by using an incorrigble teen for babysitting.

Here is a link that might be useful: Story
dotmom
Original Author
16 years ago
I saw the Father and Daughter when they were interviewed on tV this morning. Both of them seemed to be taking the whole thing with a sense of humor. The girl said she knew what she did was wrong, and was contrite. In my opinion the parents know their child better than anyone else and (hopefully) know what punishment will work best for their child. My oldest son stole a pack of cigs from the store when he was about 10-11 yrs old. I took him back to the store and he had to tell the manager what he did, gave the pack back to him and pay for them out of his allowance. He still remembers it. It was a lesson learned and never forgot.

As for posting links, Dilly Dally....I don't know how and I'm sure there are others here, like me, who aren't as savvy as you.

This is getting real tiresome, people having to have proof or supplying resources to prove everything we post.
lowspark
16 years ago
I don't like purposely embarrassing a teen for any reason. I simply don't believe in it. We want our kids to WANT to be with us, we want our kids to like us, we want our kids to respect us. I think purposely embarrassing them goes against those wants. And I can't see any other real purpose for the ad with the picture other than embarrassing her.

IMO the ad is the real punishment. All her friends have to see it and it has to get passed around at school and the other kids will giggle and point, etc.

I've actually never understood the philosophy of purposely embarrassing your kids. Doesn't it just make them want to get away from the parents even more than they already do as teenagers?

My kids are 20 & 22 by the way, and I'm sure I embarrassed them plenty just by existing when they were "that age" but never ever on purpose. And yes, my kids do want to hang around with me now and do whenever possible (meaning when they are home from college and/or summer jobs).
sleeperblues
16 years ago
I found nothing suspicious in the article. Really, how "out of control" could it have been if the parents were just downstairs? There is no mention of alcohol or other substances, just the fact that it was past 11:00 PM. I'm not saying it would have been a punishment I would have chosen, but I have certainly embarrassed my son and his friends when they disobeyed my rules.

The best story I have is a doozy. We were out of town, on a medical mission trip of all things and took our 17 year old son along. We loaned out home to a friend and his daughter because his wife was in the ICU. After being at the hospital all day, they returned late that night to find a full blown party going on in my house. My son's darling friends had broken into our home by using the garage door code. I could have ruined a couple of kids lives if I had chosen to press charges, but I am still furious to this day. I made them do yard work for me as punishment, and DS is still "friends" with many of these jerks.
whidbeykathy
16 years ago
I found that it is more effective to get your teenagers where they live. DH always used to say "you're smarter than them" and while I had my doubts, I found it very effective to think about what exactly would rock their world. Babysitting wouldn't have been one of my options.
wifetojoeiii
16 years ago
When my girls broke the rules they would be grounded -which meant no friends over, no TV, no phone and they would be "sentenced" to hard labor over and above normal chores - washing windows, mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage etc.

My younger daughter works with kids in foster care and, believe it or not, she has thanked me for being stern with her while she was growing up.
joyfulguy
16 years ago
I don't think that I'd want to post my kid's picture in the paper.

But I agree that some punishment is in order, and I like the idea of requiring extra work rather than just depriving the young person of some desired activity. That said ... I'm not sure that I like the idea of building the attitude of work as punishment.

ole joyful
sheesh
16 years ago
This is getting real tiresome, people having to have proof or supplying resources to prove everything we post. Sorry, dotmom, but it's not tiresome at all, it's necessary! Your synopsis wasn't quite enough for your readers to form valid opinions of our own. It certainly isn't hard to learn how to post links; I suggest you do it. Wanna try?

I disagree with this punishment as being useful. Meaningless is more like it. She's probably a good kid to begin with; what else is she going to do or say in the interview but agree with her father? I think the father is a bully.
trishaw
16 years ago
My daughter was in her junior year of high school and she thought it might be fun to ditch school for the day. Well, new school has cameras and they caught her leaving campus which is a huge no no. So, school calls me. She was punished by not being allowed to attend school for a day. Now that made no sense to me at all and I was furious. There was no way in heck this girl was going to stay home and watch tv all day. So I took her to work. She spent the day pulling weeds at the garden center. The principal called me the next day and asked if I could take other kids. Ha, no thanks. While my daughter never learned the lesson neither one of our boys ever missed school!

Trish in SC
mariend
16 years ago
Any one who has children faces a challenge. No matter how good they are, they too will do something they should not--and any parent who says My Child would never--
just smile and say good luck.
Have a great day.
lindyluwho
16 years ago
A simple search of "missed curfew punishment" will find this article. Wanna try?

Here is a link that might be useful: Teen punishment
dilly_dally
16 years ago
Lindyluwho, a simple search "missed curfew punishment" only brings up this thread at KT/GW, and another discussion board where someone posts one short quip and no link to the story. Click the Google link below to see this.

-----------------

"As for posting links, Dilly Dally....I don't know how and I'm sure there are others here, like me, who aren't as savvy as you. This is getting real tiresome, people having to have proof or supplying resources to prove everything we post."

Dotmom, being able to CC&P is not anything "computer savvy". I'm the most computer illiterate person I know.

Asking for a link to a news story is not asking for "proof" it is just making it easier for those who wish to participate in the discussion. It is the polite thing to do to supply a link to the news story - especially when someone is referring to something in their local news. Local news stories don't appear on the top of Google.

This particular story about the babysitting punishment was picked up by AP, so it did achieve a higher Google ranking.

And I did say "Please put a link in your post to reference a news story." with 'Please' in boldface. I don't think I did anything wrong.

Your post said the girl "broke curfew" leading one to believe she was out of the house. It also was not clear if she was being punished for being out all night or if she was just a few minutes late - and some parents ARE that strict. It turns out that the teen had had a party with a couple dozen kids over and they were finally caught at 2:30AM when the party was broken up. I wouldn't define that as "breaking curfew" but maybe that is a regional thing. A link to the news story would have clarified this part about the party being thrown.

What is really getting tiresome is always getting chewed out every time one asks a question.

----------------------------

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=+%22missed+curfew+punishment%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=CGoGA2MNzTI2yNI_KMo3svd4PAAAAqgQFT9D9ilg&pbx=1&fp=ad526d12389e3c08

Here is a link that might be useful: Google for MISSED CURFEW PUNISHMENT keywords
lindyluwho
16 years ago
That's why I don't rely on Google. I use Dogpile.com. It gathers info from several search engines. Much more reliable.

Linda

Teenagers punishment....

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