Our third session hadn’t started yet. People were still clustered in small groups, deeply engrossed in conversation. Scraps of sentences reached my ears.
“After what she did, I’m grounding her for the month!”
“So I said to myself, No more Mr. Nice Guy. I’ve been too easy on this kid. This time he’s going to be punished.”
Well, I thought to myself, we haven’t talked about punishment yet, but it sounds as if some people are more than ready.
“Laura, Michael,” I said. “Would you be willing to let us all in on what your kids did that made you so angry at them?”
“I wasn’t just angry,” Laura sputtered. “I was worried sick! Kelly was supposed to be at her friend Jill’s birthday party at six o’clock. At seven I got a call from Jill’s mother. ‘Where’s Kelly? She knew we had to be at the bowling alley by seven-thirty. It was on the invitation. Now we’re all standing around in our coats waiting for her.’
“My heart began to pound. I said, ‘I don’t understand. She left in plenty of time. She should have been there long ago.’
” ‘Well, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. I just hope she gets here soon,’ Jill’s mother said, and hung up.
“I made myself wait fifteen minutes before calling back. Jill answered the phone. ‘No, Kelly still isn’t here. And I even reminded her in school today not to be late.’
“Now I really started to panic. Horrible pictures flashed through my mind. Twenty agonizing minutes later the phone rang. It was Jill’s mother. ‘I thought you’d like to know that Kelly has finally arrived. Evidently she met some boy on the way here and was so busy talking to him she forgot we were waiting for her. I only hope we didn’t lose our reservation at the bowling alley.’
“I apologized for my daughter and thanked her for calling. But when Kelly walked in after the party, I tore into her: ‘Do you realize what you put me through? How could you be so inconsiderate? How could you be so irresponsible? You never give a thought to anyone but yourself. It was Jill’s birthday. But did you feel an obligation to your friend? No! All you care about is boys and having fun. Well, the fun is over, young lady. You are grounded for the rest of the month! And don’t think I am going to change my mind, because I won’t.’
“Well, that’s what I said to her then. But now I don’t know. … Maybe I was too hard on her.”
“Seems to me,” Michael commented, “Kelly got exactly what she deserved. And so did my son.”
All heads turned toward him. “What happened?” someone asked. “What did he do?”
“It’s what he hasn’t been doing,” Michael answered. “Namely, his homework. Ever since Jeff made the team, soccer is all he cares about. Every day he comes home late from practice, disappears into his room after dinner, and when I ask him if he’s keeping up with his homework, he says, ‘Not to worry, Dad. I’m on top of it!’
“Well, Sunday, when Jeff was out, I walked by his room and noticed a letter lying on the floor near his door. I picked it up and saw it was addressed to me. It had been opened and was dated a week ago. Guess what? It was a warning notice from his math teacher. Jeff had handed in no homework—none—for the past two weeks. When I saw that, I hit the roof.
“As soon as he walked through the door, I was ready for him. I held up the letter and said, ‘You lied to me about doing your homework. You opened mail that was addressed to me. And you never showed me this warning notice. Well, I have news for you, mister. No more soccer for you for the rest of the term. I’m calling the coach tomorrow.’
“He said, ‘Dad, you can’t do that to me!’
“I said, ‘I’m not doing anything to you, Jeff. You’ve done it to yourself. Case closed.’ “
“But is it really closed?” Laura asked.
“Jeff doesn’t think so. He’s been working on me all week to get me to change my mind. So has my wife.” Michael glanced at her meaningfully. “She thinks I’m being too tough. Don’t you, dear?”
“What do you think?” I asked Michael.
“I think Jeff knows now that I mean business.”
“Yeah,” Tony chimed in. “Sometimes punishment is the only way to get a kid to shape up—to be more responsible.”
“I wonder,” I asked the group, “does punishment make a child more responsible? Take a moment and think back to your own experiences when you were growing up.”
Karen was the first to respond. “Punishment made me less responsible. When I was thirteen, my mother caught me with a cigarette and took away my phone privileges. So I smoked even more. Only I did it in the backyard where no one could see me. Then I’d come in and brush my teeth and say, ‘Hi Mom,’ with a big smile. I got away with it for years. Unfortunately, I’m still smoking.”
“I don’t know,” Tony said. “To my way of thinking, there’s a time and place for punishment. Take me, for instance. I was a bad kid. The gang I hung out with used to get into a lot of trouble. We were a wild bunch. One of the guys ended up in jail. I swear, if my father hadn’t punished me for some of the things I did, I don’t know where I’d be today.”
“And I don’t know where I’d be today,” Joan said, “if I hadn’t had therapy to help me undo the effects of all the times I was punished.”
Tony looked startled by her comment. “I don’t get it,” he said to her.
“Both my mother and father,” Joan explained, “believed that if a child did anything wrong and you didn’t punish her, you weren’t a responsible parent. And they always told me they were punishing me for my own good. But it wasn’t good for me. I became an angry, depressed teenager who had no confidence in herself. And there was no one I could talk to at home. I felt very alone.”
I found myself sighing. What people had just described was all the familiar fallout of punishment. Yes, some children become so discouraged by punishment and feel so powerless that they begin to lose faith in themselves.
And yes, some children, like Tony, conclude that they really are “bad” and need to be punished in order to become “good.”
And yes, some, like Karen, become so angry and resentful that they continue their behavior but devise ways not to get caught. They become, not more honest, but more cautious, more secretive, more crafty.
Yet punishment is widely accepted as a preferred method of discipline. In fact, many parents see discipline and punishment as one and the same. How could I share my conviction that in a caring relationship there is no room for punishment?
Aloud I said, “If we were somehow forced to eliminate punishment as a disciplinary tool, would we then be completely helpless? Would our teenagers rule the roost? Would they become wild, undisciplined, self-absorbed, spoiled brats, devoid of any sense of right or wrong, who walk all over their parents? Or might there be methods other than punishment that could motivate our teenagers to behave responsibly?”
On the board I wrote:
State your feelings.
State your expectations.
Show how to make amends.
Offer a choice.
Take action.
I asked Laura and Michael if they’d be willing to try to apply these skills to their current situations with their children. They both agreed to take on the challenge. On the following pages you’ll see, in cartoon form, the results of our struggle to work out scenarios that would meet the new guidelines. First we looked at how Laura might deal with her daughter Kelly, whose disregard for time had caused her mother such great concern.
Alternatives to Punishment
State Your Feelings
State Your Expectations
Show How to Make Amends
Offer a Choice
But suppose Kelly repeats her offense? Suppose Mom receives another “Where’s Kelly” call? The next time Kelly wants to visit a friend, Mom can
Take Action
The group was impressed. Many comments ensued:
“I was afraid when you first talked about alternatives to punishment that you meant some kind of ‘nicey-nice’ approach where the parent gives the kid a little scolding and lets her off the hook. But this is strong. You say what you feel and what you expect and give her a way to take responsibility for her behavior.”
“And you’re not being mean or harsh or making the girl feel like a bad person. You’re being tough, but respectful. Respectful to her and respectful to yourself.”
“Yeah, it’s not you, the parent, who’s the enemy. You’re on the kid’s side, but you’re holding her to a higher standard.”
“And showing her how to meet it.”
“And you’re not sending the message ‘I have all the power over you. I won’t let you do this… I’m taking away that.’ Instead, you’re putting the power back in the teenager’s hands. The ball is in Kelly’s court. It’s up to her to figure out exactly what she can do to give her mother peace of mind—like calling if she’s delayed, and calling when she arrives, and making sure to call again before she leaves for home.”
Laura groaned and held her hand to her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Working it out here with all of you, I almost feel confident. But what happens when I’m faced with the real thing? This approach makes a lot of demands on a parent. It means you have to have a whole different attitude. The truth is, punishing a kid is a lot easier.”
“Easier for the moment,” I agreed. “But if your goals are to help your daughter to assume responsibility and at the same time to maintain a good relationship with her, then punishing her would be self-defeating.
“But you have a point, Laura. This approach does require a shift in our thinking. Suppose we get more practice. Let’s see how the skills could be applied to the problem Michael is having with his son.”
Alternatives to Punishment
State Your Feelings
State Your Expectations
Show How to Make Amends
Offer a Choice
What if Jeff does his homework, makes up his assignments, but little by little lets his schoolwork slide again? Dad can then
Take Action
Tony shook his head. “Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but I don’t see the difference between ‘taking action’ and punishing Jeff. Either way his father is keeping him off the team.”
“Wait, I think I’m finally beginning to get it,” Laura said, turning to Tony. “When you punish a kid, you close the door on him. He’s got no place to go. It’s a done deal. But when you take action, the kid might not like the action, but the door is still open. He still has a chance. He can face up to what he did and try to fix it. He can turn a ‘wrong’ into a ‘right.’ “
“I like the way you put that, Laura,” I said. “Our goal in taking action is not only to put an end to unacceptable behavior but to give our kids a chance to learn from their mistakes. A chance to right their wrongs. Punishment may stop the behavior, but it may also stop children from becoming self-correcting.”
I glanced at Tony. He still looked skeptical. I went on, determined to get through to him. “My guess is that the teenager who has just been grounded for a week does not lie up his room and think, Oh, lucky me. I have such great parents. They’ve just taught me a valuable lesson. I’ll never do that again! It’s far more likely that the young person will be thinking, They’re mean, or, They’re unfair, or, I hate them, or, I’ll get back at them, or, I’ll do it again—only next time I’ll make sure I don’t get caught.”
The group was listening intently now. I tried to sum up. “As I see it, the problem with punishment is that it makes it too easy for a teenager to ignore his misdeed and focus instead on how unreasonable his parents are. Worse yet, it deprives him of the work he needs to do to become more mature. More responsible.
“What is it that we hope will take place after a child transgresses? We hope he’ll look at what he did that was wrong. That he’ll understand why it was wrong. That he’ll experience regret for what he did. That he’ll figure out how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And that he’ll think seriously about how he might make amends. In other words, for real change to take place, our teenagers need to do their emotional homework. And punishment interferes with that important process.”
The room was silent. What were people thinking? Did they still have doubts? Had I been clear? Could they accept what they had heard? I looked at my watch. It was late. “We did a lot of hard work here tonight,” I said. “I’ll see you all next week.”
Tony’s hand went up. “One last question,” he called out.
“Go ahead.” I nodded.
“What if you use all the skills we worked on tonight, and the kid still doesn’t shape up? Suppose he doesn’t know how to be what you call ‘self-correcting’? What then?”
“Then that’s an indication that the problem needs more work. That it’s more complex than it originally appeared and that you need to give it more time and gather more information.”
Tony looked bewildered. “How?”
“By problem-solving.”
“Problem-solving?”
“It’s a process we’ll be talking about next week. We’ll be working on ways for parents and kids to join forces, explore possibilities, and solve the problem together.”
For the first time that evening Tony smiled. “Sounds good to me,” he said. “This is one meeting I’m not gonna miss.”
In the week that followed our session on alternatives to punishment, several people reported how they put their new skills into action.
This first story was told by Tony about his fourteen-year-old son, Paul.
Paul and his friend Matt came running down the driveway, out of breath, grinning from ear to ear. I said, “What’s up, guys?” They said, “Nothing,” and looked at each other and laughed. Then Matt whispered something to Paul and took off.
“What did he tell you not to tell me?” I asked Paul. He didn’t answer. So I said, “Just tell me the truth. I won’t punish you.”
Finally, I got it out of him. The story was that he and Matt biked over to the community pool for a swim, but it was closed for the night. So they tried all the doors, found one that wasn’t locked, and let themselves in. Then they turned on all the lights and ran around, whooping it up, knocking over all the lounge chairs, throwing cushions everywhere—including into the pool. And to them it was one big joke.
The kid was lucky I promised not to punish him, because believe me, when I heard what he did, I wanted to throw the book at him—cut off his allowance, take away his computer, ground him indefinitely—anything to wipe that stupid smile off his face.
I said, “Listen to me, Paul. This is serious. What you did has a name. It’s called vandalism.”
His face turned red. He yelled, “See I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I knew you’d make a big deal out of it. It’s not like we stole anything or peed in the pool!”
“Well, congratulations for that,” I said, “but, Paul, it is a big deal. A lot of people in this community worked their tails off to raise enough money to build a pool for their families. They’re proud of it, and they work hard to maintain it. And it also happens to be the pool where you learned how to swim.”
Paul said, “What are you trying to do? Guilt me?”
“You bet I am,” I said, “because what you did was wrong and now you need to make it right.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go back to the pool—now—and put everything back the way you found it.”
“Now?! … Jeez, I just got home!”
“Yes, now. I’m driving you.”
“What about Matt? It was his idea. He should come too! I’m calling him.”
Well, he did call, and at first Matt said, “No way,” that his mother would kill him if she found out. So I got on the phone. I said, “Matt, the two of you did it, and the two of you need to fix it. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”
Anyway, I drove the kids back to the pool. Luckily, the door was still open. The place was a wreck. I told the boys, “You know what you have to do. I’ll wait in the car.”
About twenty minutes later, they came out and said, “It’s all done. Wanna see?” I said, “Yeah, I do,” and went inside to check.
Well, the whole place was straightened up. The lounge chairs were all lined up, and the cushions were back where they belonged. I said, “Good. Everything looks normal. Turn off the lights and let’s go.”
On the way home the boys were quiet. I don’t know about Matt, but I think Paul finally understood why he shouldn’t have done what he did. And I think he was glad he had a chance to, as you say, “make amends.”
I was making dinner when Rachel walked through the door. I took one look at her bloodshot eyes and dopey smile, and I knew she was “high.” I wasn’t sure it was pot, but I was hoping it was nothing worse.
I said, “Rachel, you’re stoned.”
She said, “You’re always imagining things about me,” and disappeared into her room.
I just stood there. I couldn’t believe it. This was the same child who just last month had confided to me, “Swear you won’t tell anybody, Mom, but Louise started smoking pot. Can you believe it? Isn’t that terrible?”
I remember thinking Thank God, it’s not my daughter. And now this! I didn’t know what to do. Should I ground her? Forbid her to go anywhere after school? (Certainly not to Louise’s!) Insist that she come straight home from now on? No, that would only lead to arguments and tears. Besides, it wasn’t realistic.
But I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. And I knew there was no point in trying to talk to her until the effects of whatever she had taken or smoked had worn off. Also, I needed time to think. Should I tell her about my own “experimenting” as a teenager? And if I do, how much should I tell her? Would it help her to know? Or would she use it as an excuse to justify what she was doing (“You did it and you’re okay”)? Anyway, over the next few hours, I had a dozen imaginary conversations with her. Finally, after dinner, when she seemed more herself, we talked. Here’s how the real thing went:
“Rachel, I’m not looking for a confession, but I saw what I saw and I know what I know.”
“Oh, Mom, you’re so dramatic! It was just a little pot. Don’t tell me you never tried it when you were my age.”
“Actually, I was a lot older. Sixteen, not thirteen.”
“See … and you’re okay.”
“I wasn’t so okay then. My old friends, what you’d call the ‘good kids,’ stopped being friends with me, and my grades went way down. The truth is, when I started I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought it was harmless. Not as bad for you as cigarettes.”
“So what made you stop?”
“Barry Gifford, a boy in my class. He crashed his car into a tree after leaving a party where everyone was getting high. Anyway, Barry ended up in the hospital with a ruptured spleen. Then a few days later we all had to go to this drug awareness program, and they handed out these pamphlets. After that I decided it wasn’t worth it.”
“Oh, they were probably just trying to scare you.”
“That’s what I thought. But then I read the whole pamphlet. Some of it I already knew, but there was a whole lot of stuff I didn’t know.”
“Like what?”
“Like how pot can stay in your system for days after you take it. How it messes up your memory and your coordination, and even your menstrual cycle. And how it’s even worse for you than cigarettes. I had no idea that marijuana had more cancer-causing chemicals than tobacco. That was a big surprise to me.”
Rachel suddenly looked worried. I put my arm around her and said, “Listen, daughter of mine, if I could, I’d follow you around day and night to make sure that nobody ever gives you or sells you anything that could do you harm. But that would be pretty crazy. So I have to count on you to be smart enough to protect yourself from all the garbage that’s out there. And I believe you will. I believe you’ll do what’s right for your life—no matter how much people pressure you.”
She still looked worried. I gave her a big hug and that was that. We didn’t talk about it anymore. I think what I said had an impact, but I’m not taking any chances. Kids lie to their parents about drugs (I know—I did), so even though I have mixed feelings about snooping, I think I’ll be checking her room every so often.
Neil, my fifteen-year-old, asked me if Julie, his friend since childhood, could sleep over on Saturday. Her parents were going to an out-of-town wedding, and her grandmother, who had planned to stay with her, got sick and couldn’t come.
I thought, Why not? My younger son would be spending the weekend at his father’s house, so Julie could have his room. Of course I checked with Julie’s mother to see how she felt about it. She jumped at the offer—relieved that a responsible adult would be looking after her daughter for the night.
When Julie came, I showed her where she’d be sleeping. Then the three of us had a nice dinner and watched a video.
The next morning Julie’s mother called to say she was back home and could she speak to Julie. I went upstairs to get her. The door of her room was half-open, and the bed had not been slept in! The pillows that I had arranged so carefully the day before were exactly as I had left them. As I stood there with my mouth open, I heard laughter coming from Neil’s bedroom.
I rapped hard on his door and yelled out that Julie’s mother was on the phone and wanted to speak to her.
When the door finally opened, Julie came out looking rumpled and embarrassed. She avoided my eyes, ran downstairs to talk to her mother, ran back upstairs to get her backpack, thanked me “for everything,” and went home.
As soon as she left the house, I exploded. “Neil, how could you do this to me!? I gave Julie’s mother my word that I would be responsible for her. That she’d be safe and protected!”
Neil said, “But Mom, she …”
I cut him off. “Don’t ‘but Mom’ me. What you did was inexcusable.”
“But, Mom, nothing happened.”
“Oh, right. Two teenagers spend the night together in the same bed and nothing happened. You must think I’m pretty stupid. Well, I’ll tell you something that won’t be happening next weekend. You’re not going on the ski trip with your class.”
I said it, and I meant it, and I felt it was exactly what he deserved. Then I left the room so I wouldn’t have to listen to him carry on about how unreasonable I was being.
A few minutes later I changed my mind. How could keeping Neil from his ski trip help him realize why he shouldn’t have done what he did? So I walked back into his room and said, “Listen, Neil, forget what I said about the ski trip. Here’s what I really want to say: I know sex is a normal, healthy part of life, but the fact is, parents worry when it comes to their kids. They worry about their daughters becoming pregnant, about their sons becoming fathers. They worry about AIDS and all the other …”
He didn’t let me finish. He said, “Ma, enough! I don’t need a sex education lecture. I know all that stuff. Besides, I’m trying to tell you, nothing happened! We were just lying on the bed, watching TV.”
Well, maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I said, “I’m glad to hear it, Neil. Because when you invited Julie to spend the night in our home, you took on a responsibility—to both Julie and her mother…and me. A responsibility that needed to be honored.”
Neil didn’t say anything, but from the expression on his face, I could see that my words hit home. And that was enough for me. I was able to drop it.
My wife and I thought we had covered all bases when we bought our new computer. We put it in the family room (over the objections of twelve-year-old Nicole, who lobbied hard to have it in her bedroom); we installed the latest filtering software (we heard there were at least three million porn sites a kid could accidentally tap into); and we worked out a loose schedule to try to meet the needs of everyone in the family. We also made it clear to Nicole that the computer was strictly off-limits after nine P.M. and was only to be used for schoolwork or to go online with friends.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, a few nights ago I woke up a little after midnight, saw a light in the family room, got up to turn it off, and found Nicole glued to the computer. She was so absorbed, she didn’t even hear me. I stood behind her and read the screen: “Courtney, you sound so cute and funny and sexy. When can I meet you?” The second she realized I was there, she typed in “pos” (I later learned that means “parent over shoulder”) and blanked out the screen.
I broke out in a cold sweat. I’ve heard too many news reports about what happens to young girls who meet teenage boys in chat rooms. The boy flatters her, tells her how much they have in common, makes her feel special, and little by little gets her to the point where she agrees to meet him. Only it turns out he’s not a cute teenage boy but some old guy, a sexual predator who’s out to do who-knows-what to her.
I said, “Nicole, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’re exposing yourself to? I ought to take away your computer privileges indefinitely!”
She immediately went on the defensive. She said there was nothing to get so excited about, that she was only having a little fun, that she hadn’t even used her real name, and that she was smart enough to know the difference between a “sicko creep” and a normal person.
I said, “Nicole, listen to me. There is no way you can tell the difference! The worst ‘sickos’ are capable of sounding completely normal and charming. They know exactly how to go about fooling a young girl. They’ve had lots of practice.” Then I told her that I wanted her password because from now on her mother and I would be checking regularly to see where she’d been online.
Her reaction? I didn’t trust her … I had no right … I was taking away her privacy, etc., etc. But by the time I finished telling her some of the horror stories I had heard about how these “normal” guys turn out to be stalkers, kidnappers, rapists, or worse, all she could manage to say, in a weak little voice, was, “Well, you can’t believe everything you hear.”
I guess she was trying to save face. But I think a part of her was actually relieved that her father was looking out for her and that he wasn’t a pushover.
Alternatives to Punishment
| Teen: | You swore you’d quit smoking, and you’re still doing it! You are such a phony. You are so full of it! |
| Parent: | And you, big mouth, are grounded this weekend! |
| Instead: |
State your feelings:
“That kind of talk makes me angry.”
State your expectations:
“When I’m trying to stop smoking, what I expect from my son is support—not an attack.”
Offer a choice:
“Name-calling hurts. You can either talk to me about what you think might help me quit or you can put it in writing.”
Show how to make amends:
“When you realize you’ve offended someone, it’s a good idea to apologize.”
But what if the teenager continues to speak disrespectfully?
Take Action (as you leave the room):
“This conversation is over. I’m not available for insults.”
