30 Times Parents Came Up With Creative, Strange, And Random Ways To Deal With Misbehaving Kids
Everyone has their own parenting style, tailor-made to fit the unique relationship between them and their child. Some moms and dads are incredibly loving and gentle. Some believe that high control is the go-to approach. Others navigate raising their kids by trying to blend authority and kindness to ensure their little ones grow up to be happy, healthy, and rounded adults.
Parents of all kinds usually want what's best for their children, but the little quirks and weird shenanigans their daredevils pull sometimes catch them off guard. And while the consequences of broken rules can vary, this thread over on 'Ask Reddit' proves one thing to be true: some parents get extremely creative in dealing with misbehaving kids, and they try to bring the structure back into the household in the most baffling ways.
"What's the strangest punishment your parents ever gave you?" asked Redditor stuartwolf and received a deluge of responses from adults who revealed some of the most ridiculous discipline tactics ever performed. Below, we've gathered some stories for you to relate to — or at least be thankful that your parents didn't make you fill cut-open tennis balls with pennies for no reason at all. So continue scrolling and upvote your favorite ones!
Psst! Check out even more stories about absurd punishments from "insane" parents in Bored Panda's earlier piece right here.
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I had to write book reports on books of the Bible. I would have to read the book of the Bible, discuss the major themes, and explain how it related to my bad behavior. As a result, I really know my Bible and no longer believe in religion.
When I was preparing for high school I sucked at writing, particularly long response/essay questions. To mediate this my dad spent a week having me write a different essay every day of the most simple and mundane tasks. The one that really sticks out in my mind was the first one, “How to put a football away”. By doing this, though it seemed inhumane at the time, I learned how to expand a simple thought into highly descriptive details and became a great writer throughout the rest of my school career.
That's some hot dad energy right there...thinking from the perspective of as a spouse of course
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That may be true, but not everyone can bullsh*t a paper. No matter how many times my mom told me to do it for an essay senior year, I just couldn't. I have to be truthful with what I write. I'm going to do a Creative Writing degree and yet my skills in English still suck because I can't bullsh*t anything. Sorry if I went a little nuts there 😅.
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My 10th grade English teacher suggested a similar method to her students that were struggling creative writing and the like
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That is about the opposite of me lol. I loved writing all through school. I did have to do some really mundane writing assignments but they were never assigned by my parents. I do remember the worst essay I ever did. I had to write about a ball point pen. It felt like that s**t took me forever, but by the end of the essay I practically made a whole rap about it 😂😂. I got an A 😁
I'm gonna steal this idea. Sometimes I need to work against my writer's block
I hated writing because while you do have to meet a minimum threshold in terms of the goal of the paper, a lot of minor things come down to the opinion of the grader. Does the style differ from the reader, was the reader in a good mood, is the reader tired, etc. My favorite writing class was advanced technical writing. While I thought it sounded boring and verbose, it illustrated how to effectively break things down, as well as visual effectiveness (like creating extra empty space to separate sections, headings to designate new areas). It taught me the infrastructure of writing.
Our English teacher had a similar exercise as an actual assignment. Though this wasn't necessarily a "mundane" event but a depiction of "the first time we participated in" an event of our choice. I had to go out and do a new experience because I couldn't think of anything
As young adults, we sometimes don't understand what our parents are doing for us. They seem tedious and menial tasks. But in their way, they are helping us grow and improve at things we usually can't do well. My parents and teachers would say, "Practice makes perfect." I didn't understand this until I started practicing.
When I taught Junior High Language Arts, I often had my students write an essay on how to mow a lawn--same reason, often the same result!
8ve this! It took me until the age of 48 to realise that my words were good? I may only be a content writer country manager, but I have proof that my words and the advice that I give the writers that l mentor make a difference in some people's lives, which means a lot to me.
My parents said I was playing too much Skyrim when it came out, so they took the router with them to work every day. Good thing you don't need internet to play an offline single player game.
My parents routinely took away my library card when I did something worth punishing.
So I memorized it.
When they caught on they refused to go to the library with me for the duration of my punishment.
So I started volunteering at the library once a week so they had to take me.
What's weird to me is the punishment itself (can't go to the library).
Told this story before and was called Satan. I basically raised my little brother. When he was in middle school he was failing math. He would always forget to turn in assignments, refused tutoring and didn't study for quizzes. I told him if he failed I'd do something drastic. He failed on the year. So I deleted every save in his PS2. All of them. There were hundred of hours of saved games. Never saw him cry so hard in my life. He passed summer school with a B.
Edit: I am getting a lot of hate and will certainly get more in a minute but here is more to the story. This was a year long frustration. We would do homework together and he wouldn't hand it in and the teacher wouldn't accept it late. He refused to study. His pattern of behavior was out of control. For all the people saying I should have gave him blank memory cards and gave him the real ones later he would have seen right through it. He is smart. No, I deleted those files in front of him. He needed to change his behavior and I had a real hard time disciplining him as his brother and not his parent. I hated how hard he cried. It felt horrible. There was no other way. I know it was cruel.
Nah, not that bad really. He had warning, he got chances, and he still f****d up. And nothing else physical or emotionally abusive. I say fair.
No punishment. And that in itself was punishment.
I totally bombed during my first semester in college. I took 16 credits and ended up with a 0.77 GPA for the semester. Yes, less than 1.0.
My parents were disappointed, but told me that they knew I could do better, and they knew I would do better. They forgave me and basically said "Ok, so you screwed up, now make it better and make us proud".
The fact that they were not upset really weighed on me. It REALLY put a ton of guilt and shame upon me, even though they didn't put those things on me, *I* did it to myself!
It really motivated me to not d**k around any longer in college. I buckled down and really succeeded.
That is actually the definition of GOOD parenting. The real goal is to have YOU realize how to correct your errors and not make the same mistakes. That you took the initiative to work harder and learn that lesson, I am sure made them proud.
They were mad I was playing too many video games (civilization, master of Orion II, world of warcraft I, Final fantasy I, 2, 3, tactics, ogre battle, Ur-Quan masters, okay, so I played lots of games...), so they made me go out with friends more. Now keep in mind, I did have friends and was social and would go out once or twice a week with them... but ANY video games were BAD.
So my parents forced me to go hang out in my buddies garage where they just drank and smoked up at 13 years old. A couple of them ended up getting into some serious drugs by around 16, and my parents still were forcing me to go hang out with them - because their parents were "good people" that will "sort him out".
Well, they never did.
I always thought it was funny that they considered cerebral strategy games more damaging to my development than hanging out with 13-16 year old drunks.
Me and my brothers were fighting. As punishment our parents made us all read and give a book report. But I love to read, always have, so while my brothers got to read The Hardy Boys. I had to read a book about flower arranging.
After about 2 hours I came out crying about how I didn't want to read about flowers any more. They made me report on what I'd read so far. Apparently watching a crying 7yr old talk about how you can use baby's breath to accent other flowers is something you still laugh about 20 years later.
Bringing it up and laughing about any punishment years later is just mean.
When I was 10, mom would take my NES games for a week.
When I was 13, mom would take my SNES games for a week.
When I was 16, mom would take my BLANK FLOPPY DISCS for a week.
I didn't explain the mistake to her until I moved out.
Withheld dinner & I was only allowed to have bread and butter.
My mother is a terrible cook so I was super okay with this.
If I cursed, my mom would make me go into the bathroom and say every curse I knew while looking in the mirror so "I could see how ugly I made myself look while cursing".
Well, I learned that if I wanted to curse with impunity all I had to do was say "A*s" and get sent to the bathroom where I could say any curse I could think of, punishment free, for as long as I wanted. lol
I was not allowed to read unless it was specifically for school.
I was always more the artist type. Didn't much care for throwing the football around or working on cars. I wasn't belittled or anything, my family let me do me.
But my step-father was an evil genius and when I did something that was considered a minor infraction he'd give me the option of either going to bed early or staying up till my normal bedtime but having to watch sports with him in the living room. And I couldn't just zone out or read. He'd sit there and make chit chat about the game or try explaining the rules or the players stats or something else I couldn't have cared less about.
I'm 34 and we still laugh about that sometimes. S**t was brutal.
sounds like hell. Only way to make that worse would be to make you drink bud lite, which is not really anything at all.
Was 14yo. First time getting wasted. Like REALLY wasted. Had 0,5l bottle of 80% alcohol. No memory of the night. Apparently two of my friends had carried me home and talked to my father who had only asked whether I had anything besides alcohol.
Next morning my parents made me breakfast in bed. No penalty. Just a weirdly nice conversation about what went wrong. At the end my father just said, "I'm not gonna tell you to not drink, I know that doesn't work. All I want you to do is make better decisions in life than I did" and left the room.
Later that day we went shopping and they bought me a new snowboard. Weird.
Anytime i would come home hungover i would have to help my dad do manual labor outside in the heat. Fixing a lawnmower, planting/gardening, painting, robbing bees, you name it. He was always right there with me working too, he just always needed my help. I just thought it was just a shitty coincidence and my parents had no idea that i even drank, but once i was an adult i realized it was definitely no coincidence. They were on to me the whole time.
For some reason my parents allowed my brother and I to have a very basic bow and arrow which we were allowed to shoot at a cardboard box in the backyard. I, being very young and very dumb, crawled into the box while my brother was firing. Parents were not pleased and to demonstrate how dangerous what I had done was, they made me lay on the couch for the whole day and pretend I was in a hospital bed.
Not my parents but my sister was babysitting me and I was being an a*s so she sent me to my room. Now I had a TV so it wasn't a big deal but the buttons on it were broke so you had to use the remote. She set it to the 24/7 weather radar channel and muted it and walked out with the remote. Total b***h move
I beat up a bully, my mom had a strong conversation with me, and then took me out for Sushi.
One time I forged my mom's signature on a school discipline warning thing. She made me write my own signature 500 times "so I wouldn't write the wrong name again"
When I was little, my mom's go-to punishment was to make me kneel on uncooked rice for about 15 minutes. Had to keep a straight back or else the time was increased. She did this because that was how her mom punished her and her brother. She eventually stopped using this punishment after she set some clear boundaries with my very controlling grandmother. She never felt right making me do it. My little sister never had to go through it...I kind of resented that for a while, but eventually was grateful she didn't experience it.
Abusive behaviour trying to disguise itself as punishment. So glad to hear this 'punishment' was stopped.
I was being a d**k as a teen (I think I was 15) and tormenting my little brother by grossing him out. Stuff like burping in his face when he didn't expect it, making him smell my feet, etc, and he really hated it. It made me laugh and I called him a pussy for being grossed out so easily.
After he came to her crying one day about it, my mom warned me that if I didn't stop, I'd be very sorry.
**I didn't listen. Worst mistake of my childhood.**
My mom ran a small "doggy daycare" / pet grooming business. The next time I did this to my brother, she put me to work cleaning filthy dog kennels - without gloves, and without a scooper.
Worse, she introduced me to what dog "a**l glands" are, which groomers often have to "express." Around 3 times a day that week, I had to express dog a**l glands. I was not allowed to wear gloves. I puked. Every. Single. Time.
She planned on the punishment lasting all week, but my bro asked her to let me off the hook after he saw how defeated and broken I looked by Wednesday.
No gloves, though? I feel like that’s too far because of exposure to disease and parasites.
I would get grounded to the front porch because when I was grounded in my room I would entertain myself with literally anything, even lint from the carpet. So my dad finally had enough and made me sit on the front porch and I wasnt allowed to talk to anyone except to say that im grounded and cant talk
My mom always told me I would end up in prison.
As punishment, she would make me sit in time out under an office desk with a slat back chair turned upside down on top so the back covered the opening like bars.
Come dinner time she fed me hard rolls and water because "That's what they serve in prison."
I found out years later, while not good food, prison food is much better than hard rolls and water.
I had to fill cut-open tennis balls with pennies.
I’m still... not sure what that was about.
I was innocent btw.
Me and my sister were fighting after i tried to steal some of her chili fries and she stabbed me with a fork. Dad took us out back and tied us up face to face with a rope. Told us when you figure out how to work together you will be able to get out.
When my brother and I were little we started to play with our toys instead of cleaning them like we were told to, so my dad took us to the kitchen and made us kneel on rice until my mom saw us and had us get up.
When my brother was around 7 or 8 he would chew on the collar of his shirts and make holes in them so my dad made him start eating these dog chews as punishment. He then was even more angry when my brother finished the first one and asked for a second because of how much he liked it.
When I was 6 I did something stupid that angered my dad and I wasn't allowed to mention anything related to Pokemon for a month
MY CRIME: I was 8 years old and decided to go on a corn field to hunt foxes with hammer and home made shurikens. I didnt tell anyone and I was gone several hours. When they found me...
MY PUNISHMENT: I had to run home barefoot on dusty road in front of my father who was on a bicycle. While i was running he was telling me a story about a boy who also went on fox hunt. When parents found him, they drenched him with gasoline and kept smacking him with a stick until sausages fell from his body.
I didnt mind the running, but that story gave me creeps for several years...
I got a bad grade on a math test in elementary school. As my dad dropped me off for the day, I quickly told him he needed to sign something (the test). He was SO FURIOUS, that even though I was already late for school, he drove the 2 miles back home, spanked me and made me *walk* to school. I was soooo late.
Wasn't allowed to go trick-or-treating that year because I didn't lie to my babysitter about not having eaten breakfast that day.
My mom had to pick me up at 4 am after receiving an underage drinking ticket. Was woken up unexpectedly at 7 am to help her go pick strawberries for 5 hours. More unique than strange but nonetheless she did good with that punishment
See…THIS is a punishment that fits the crime. Five stars for this mom.
my parents had a advertisement agency. They would also do pre-print work, i don't know the english term for it but they would do photo editing and magazine editing, yearbooks for highschools and such.
I was at fifth grade.
I found out they were doing the color and photo editing for a turkish porno magazine called 'CIKITA' (chikita)
and took it to school and monetized it. NBA collector cards, countless chocolate bars, magic the gathering cards, soccer cards were my main currency.
I was the king among men. Then a c**t tried to get his cards back and threatened me to tell the headmaster. I tore one of his cards and said if you tell them i will mess the others too.
He told on me. the f****r didn't see my bluff. i mean i cut the cards just in spite.
My punishment was to start working for my parents company after school for 2 hours everyday. I learned photoshop, coral, scanning old-school photo films, learned the printing machine and such.
I got good so they made me work until seventh grade, until they divorced and sold the company. their divorce was the best thing happened.
Sent me to their room. My room had a full size color tv with cable, video games, and all my stuff. Their room had a bed and a tiny. black and white, tv with an antenna that only got 1 channel in well. Most boring night ever.
One time when I was super young, I didn’t eat all of the food on my plate my dad told me I was gonna eat it or wear it. I was full and I said I’m not gonna eat it. Then my dad slammed my head into my plate of food. Def was a very strange punishment
When I was 16 I got caught shoplifting a cd. Thankfully they didn't press charges but my father confiscated every possession I owned short of the essentials (Mattress, blankets, clothes), and ironically, a $200 police scanner, still in the box, he didn't know about. And that's how I got into listening to police scanners.
Edit: Scanner was shoplifted as well and I never shoplifted again after getting caught.
the first thing that came to my mind was that [vine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJHRCv5P4hc)
but in reality my mom once made me clean the yard by picking up each leaf one by one and walking all the way across the yard to put each one in a bag. I was 8.
The crime, you ask? I had scared my dog on accident and the dog knocked over her water.
edit: I'm glad the penalty for my crime could be so entertaining
I had one of those palate expander things that are used when your mouth is too crowded for all of your permanent teeth. Once or twice a day, you have to take a "key", and tighten the screw in the middle of this metal bar that sits across the roof of your mouth to slowly widen your upper jaw. Felt like a medieval torture device.
You bet I would shape up real fast when my mom would threaten "I'm gonna get the key!"
I had one of those in middle school. Didn't have any classes on tuesday morning so I went to the dentist's every week for that turn of key. Utilisez the teacher I had on tuesday afternoon wrote to my parents askin them to find another time for that, as I was completely "useless" for those three hours, rocking on my chair holding my mouth.
Not really a strange punishment, but it turned out strangely I think. When I was probably 5 or 6, something happened (literally can't remember what I did to deserve the punishment) that caused my parents to send me to my room with no lights allowed on and the door closed. I'd never been able to sleep with the door closed and at least a light on in the hall or something til then. This time? I just went to sleep after a while in there with no lights, and that was the last time I needed lights on or the door open when I went to bed. Worked out well from my point of view IMO.
*Edit: Wow this kinda blew up over the weekend. I should say that I grew up during the late 60's when spanking was just a normal thing too.. I don't remember ever actually getting spanked though. I dunno. My parents were never cruel to us when we were children. In fact, maybe I was just sent to my room and I just didn't turn on the light myself (goodness knows I could have. The switch was on the inside of my room!). I might have just pouted on my bed til I fell asleep and realized later that I didn't have the light on. It was around 50 years ago or so... I remember that it happened, but I don't remember the specific circumstances.
Wait this is making it seem like spanking is really outdated, my brother literally got one today
When I was 5 my dad had this threat he would always use that went like "putting us under the stream" or something, I can't put it right in english words. I didn't understand what that meant until one night I just couldn't fall asleep so I was there lying in bed and when he came to check up on us (shared room with my 2 sisters) and saw me awake he decided it was my fault and he had to punish me, so he dragged me to the bathroom and put my head under the running cold water tap until my hair was soaked, then sent me to bed like that. A while later when he had presumably fallen asleep my mom came, having heard the entire thing happen because I was obviously shouting at him to stop, and dried my hair, cursing him up and down. To this day I still don't understand what his logic was and he laughs about it when I mention it.
He always had it out for me during those years for some reason.
And if you're wondering why my mom didn't stop him my guess would be during that time housewives just didn't really go against their husbands for whatever reason, I don't hold it against her though.
In my high school years when I got in trouble my dad would hand me five dice. I’d roll them and what ever number came up, I’ll use 19 for example, I would do 19 push-ups, turn over and do 19 sit ups, turn over and do 18 push-ups and so on alternating all the way down to zero. At the time, my father was a drill sergeant in the Army. It was a pretty effective way to keep me in line.
My mother used to lock me in the trunk of the car if I annoyed her, I'd spend about 8 hours at a time with her driving sealed away in there.
Oof, another one.it was my birthday and I didn't like the food my father made once as he puts chilli in things knowing I am allergic to them. I refused to eat it for his amusement . He stormed upstairs and chucked my presents down, he stomped on them, ripped up all my birthday cards ect. I was about 11.
If I misbehaved in a car, my mom would lower the window and say that a bird would fly in if I’d continue to misbehave...
When I was ages 6-10 a typical punishment consisted of being made to wear a diaper and then treated like a baby for the rest of the day. Several times I was even sent to school wearing the diaper and if anyone came over while this punishment was going on I had to them show them what I was wearing underneath my pants.
I don't belive my parents punished me too much or strangely.
However I've been living with undiagnosed autism untill just some years ago and grew up punishing myself more than my parents ever did. It's sad when teachers and parents do not realize somone has mental issues.
The worst punishment i recall was when i was in the middle of a depression, telling my parents i wanted to die and all they did was replying Mom: "You make me realy upset when you say things like that"
And my dad: "Do it" and the stunning reply of "I can't stop you if that's what you want but at least wait untill grandma dies."
It husrt a lot to get told those things when basicly screaming for help.
I was about 6 or 7 and an extremely picky eater (still am). I could usually be found at dinner time sitting at the table refusing to eat and my dad making me sit there until I cleared my plate. I was good at putting food in my glass of milk or in my napkin when no one was looking, so usually it was no big deal. However, on one particular night he decided to keep a close eye on me and we had crab cakes. I absolutely detest seafood of any kind. I took a big bit of the crab, probably thinking that it would go down quickly and I would be done. No, it went down and immediately came back up. My dad, being an a*****e, decided he was going to teach me a lesson, probably about wasting food and his time, and made me re-eat the crab. I asked him about this recently and of course he has no memory of it. I'll never forget it, it was that traumatizing.
What is it about parents forcing kids to eat food. It is the fast lane to an eating disorder. Ridiculous. Kids have more taste buds and definitely have a distaste for certain foods? May be related to survival, if young don't like bitter tasting food, they will be less likely to eat poisonous berries?? I have never forced my children to clear their plates. They are all unfussy eaters now with their own food likes and dislikes. Normal, in other words.
Was grounded so much in my life. I would say 3/5th of my 1st 16 years were grounded. Neighbor convinced my mom to take me to family counseling. When i sat down with him he asked what my main complaint with them was. I said all of the grounding.
So he came up with a list of rules, and if I break them, I get kicked OUT instead of being kept in, but not kicked out to go hang with my friends. So, they put a tent up in the backyard, and when I broke a rule, I was banished to the tent for a pre determined amount of time.
This didnt end up working out, because breaking curfew was 12 hours out in the tent. So I would start breaking curfew on purpose, go out to the tent, wait for my parent to go to sleep, and sneak out of the tent and go hang with my friends all night, until the night I came home to a dead patch of grass where the tent had been, and I had to sleep the night on the patio. I woke up to my next door neighbor staring at me thru the fence shaking his head.
Safe to say, my parents went back to grounding me after that.
Side note, the counselor we went to was later arrested for molesting children.,
My mother used to ground me for no reason so I was stuck watching my little sister all weekend while mum went out and got wasted with her friends.
Mum found out I ditched Mass at school (Catholic school), so she made me go to all seven Masses offered by my church that weekend.
Total time over the weekend spend in church was like ten hours. I had the gospel and the homily memorized.
My mum turned off the electricity instead of turning off the WiFi when I was playing too much MC. I'm terrified of the dark and I was really scared that some monster was in the house. I screamed so loud we got noise complaints from both neighbours
I flunked Fluid mechanics twice in a row at university. My dad made me move 2 hours away from campus (was living next to campus) for the remainder of my undergraduate program (with 2 years left). Had to take a 4 hour commute every single f*****g day and where I'm at, school starts at 6:30am, so I had to be leaving my place every day at 4:30am
My mom made me eat a donut. I only ate half.
I don't like donuts (it's something about the dough) and one morning in elementary I guess I was sassing off or something, but mom wouldn't let me eat anything else and told me I had to eat one glazed donut. So I sat at the table and picked at half the donut, and then found a book nearby and just ready for the next half hour. She came back into the room and realized I'd chosen the only logical option for a picky eater: starvation, and gave up on the punishment after a while.
One friend asked why she didn't just let me starve until I was hungry enough, but that's a simple answer: I'd rather starve, and she got concerned when she realized how long I would go on juice boxes alone.
Bit of backstory, parents divorced, my mother, brother and I moved, eventually mother remarried to our Stepnazi Stepdad ( he felt like dealing with the SS from a teens perspective) - at this time I was around 14, and I didnt care for TV at all, internet was my go to.
So, middle of summer, I came home from school and head up to my room to find my brother and Stepfather connecting a TV in my room. I wasnt asked if I wanted one, I wasnt given a choice, I got home and they were connecting the wires.
I didnt want this TV, firstly because, I wouldnt use it, it's not like they got a new TV either, it was an old fatback tv we already had, so no issue there. Secondly, my room had an angled ceiling so space was already something lacking, and I had no where to fungshwei this thing with the room.
So I told them, thanks but I really dont want a TV and I swear it looked like I called him a piece of s**t dog f****r. Immediate screaming about how ungrateful I am. Grounded for 3 weeks, yadda yadda yadda, which for him back then, 3 weeks was generous.
I'm fuming because I figured at that age, not wanting a TV would be fine, if not better because I didnt want to be glued to it like he was to his. But the real kicker is at dinner, he told me to pay him back for the cable he bought to hook up my TV.
That's one of his qualities I guess.
TL;DR got grounded for 3 weeks for not wanting a TV in my room.
Not me, but my older brother. Got into a little fight with a teammate on his Little League team who happened to be the coach's son. Both kids were at fault and the coach was a great guy so he approached my mom after the practice to tell her what happened. She was pissed so her punishment for him was to dress him up in full uniform, bring him to his team's next game, but have him sit in the bleachers with all the families. Absolutely humiliating for him, he totally learned his lesson, and never had a problem with that moving forward. To this day he says it was by far the most effective punishment he ever received.
My parents didn't believe in punishing us but I think my dad just wanted to take a nap one day in the summer when me and my siblings were being loud and fighting with each other in the house. He got angry and told us to go to our rooms with the door closed and TV off. He never came in to check on us so we watched TV at a really low volume.
My dad's punishments were odd.
If he caught me doing something I wasn't meant to, he wouldn't stop me from doing it, he'd make me do it more and more until I was sick of it.
It worked quite well tbh.
Edit: so alot of people seem to think I'm a guy, sorry folks I have a vagina.
That reminds of that King of the Hill episode when Hank found Bobby smoking a cigarette, and he made him smoke an entire pack to make him sick, but just made him addicted to nicotine.
I got grounded a lot. That’s not weird, but my mom refused to call it a grounding. She’d just give me a bunch of individual punishments that added up to a grounding—can’t leave the house, can’t hang out with friends, can’t play with most of my toys—but if I told someone I was grounded she got upset. I think maybe the distinction she had in her head was that I was allowed to leave my room and talk to my family members, instead of being kept in my bedroom like her parents’ version of grounding.
Give me my dessert on top of the vegetables I didnt want to finish. The next time I made sure to finish my plate. Odd perhaps, but it worked.
If I got into "fights" with my brother / sister, we had to stand nose to nose for an hour. UGH!
Dude me and my siblings would end up laughing and getting our heads smashed together
Made me eat biscuits and gravy.
I absolutely hated that food as a kid, my obese step father hated it. So often the punishment was having those for dinner. I often just didn't eat, which was fine by him, he got my portion.
So your stepfather liked them, otherwise why would he get your portion?
Not me, but a friend of mine. Him and his older brother used to always get in fist fights and and up bloody and bruised when they were young. Their dad couldn't for the life of him figure out how to stop it. One time after an unusually brutal fight he had enough. He ordered both of them to sit on the couch side by side and hold hands for 30 minutes. My friend said it was the longest 30 minutes of his life. Needless to say the fighting calmed down a lot after that.
Dad made me splice together his old 8mm vacation films into a Vine style highlight reel after I hurt his feelings by refusing to see Chef with him.
I was deathly afraid of my basement, and the threat for not adhering to lights-out time was being forced to sleep in the basement for the night.
Anyway, I forget what I was doing but I was up to no good one night, probably reading comic books with a flashlight or something. I got sent to sleep in the basement and was pretty much up all night being super scared.
It was threatened a lot but I think it only actually happened once.
My dad made me take apart a super cub aircraft engine and put it back together. My dad then got in the plane an flew to Boston. This was after I f****d up badly. He wanted to make the point. That my actions had consequences and that if I f****d up something like that again someone I love could die. Dad didn’t check the engine before he flew out . He looked me dead in the eye and said that I trust you, every time you have to do something like this, my life is in your hands. Your mother and I trust you. Put the faith we have in you to work. You aren’t a stupid kid. Act like it. That moment f*****g terrified me for a second, but I knew I had done the job right. Not really a punishment more of a life lesson , in my dad’s style.
When my brother and I were small my mom would put us in the bath together, I liked to put my lips on the surface of the water and blow bubbles. My brother however, would yell to my dad that I was drinking bathwater, and he would come in shove my head underwater for 10 seconds or so repeatedly while yelling "you like to drink bathwater, go ahead drink all you want!". Oh the fun times we had!!
My parents took the bedroom door off it's hinges. For a month, I had no quiet or privacy to sleep, relax, or do homework.
Not my parents but a nun at the parochial school I attended:
She kept a handful of uncooked rice in the top center drawer of her desk. She would sprinkle a little bit on the floor in the corner and then make us kneel on it. Not bad for the first 20 seconds but then it was like KNIVES stabbing your kneecaps!
My dad sent me to my room. No biggie right? Well that’s until you hear why.
Reason: I did my f**king homework.
He claims I was in his way and needed to get out for some exercise, but it was already overdue so I couldn’t. Although I think the only reason he acted this way is because of his mood swings that he gets from his PTSD. I love him, but his mental issues are a nightmare when in action
I had abusive parents so I was once grounded to my room with no TV, games, etc. for 3 months because I walked home from school with a neighbor (I was told I couldn't be around him) after my parents forgot to pick me up. The punishment =/= the crime wasn't the strange part, though. The strange part was that all I was allowed to have was books, and I'm an introvert who loves to read, so it wasn't even really a punishment.
If you're not Korean, this might seem strange but whenever I got in trouble, I'd have to kneel down and keep my arms raised until my parents decided it was enough. If I did something really bad, I'd have to hold a chair above my head.
My parents made me join my school's cross country team because I quit the football team. They also made me join the basketball team. And the debate team. I think they had like three ideas for punishment and just did all of them.
i had to writte 500,000 sentences once. i got about 1/3 of the way done and my dad noticed i was writing one word at a time down the list (because in my mind that was faster) and he made me start over.
the funny part is, i cant remember what the sentence was or why i had to write them in the first place
yeah, no way this happened as written. War & Peace has 587,287 words so to be generous maybe 100,000 sentences. You wrote the equivelant of War & Peace 5x over?
My dad once came and removed an essential fuse out of "my" car. Rather - the car that he purchased, paid to maintain, and let me drive.
I don't even remember what I did.
But I went inside, called my friend Rusty, and had him bring me a bulk pack of fuses from Walmart so I could pop one back into the fuse panel.
Let me first say that my mom rarely punished me because I was a kind of a goody two shoes.
Anyway, when I was in fourth grade I forgot to bring a homework assignment to class. My teacher made me sit outside the class while they went over the assignment. I was soooo embarrassed because I hadn't ever gotten into trouble at school and because my cousin's class was next door so he saw me sitting outside and he and his friends teased me quite a bit. I was a shy kid so the teasing was horrible.
When we got home my cousin then told both my aunt and my mom what happened so my mom decided to punish me by making me sit on the porch and watch all the kids play kickball without me. Looking back, the punishment was odd. I was on punishment but still got to go outside and at least chat with my friends. Plus, it's not like the punishment would motivate me to do better...I was a goody two shoes who made one mistake.
My mom took away my completed homework before I could turn it in, because she knew that’s what would get to me the most. She also took away my books. And washed my mouth out with soap.
My mom got frustrated with me while I was doing homework (I was reaaally bad at math) so she tore it up in front of me. I had to tell the teacher I forgot it at home
When I was in the 7th grade I got a 2 day suspension for fighting. We were playing kickball and this one kid, Alexis, was being a real d**k with everyone. Purposely trying to bean them as pitcher and running into them trying to knock them over when he was taking a base.
I'm playing 2nd base at one point and he runs into me like that knocks me back (he was pretty fat so it was a hard hit) and I just lost it and got up and started throwing punches. The gym teacher came and broke us up right away and dragged us to the principals office.
I'm lucky that it wasn't now because I would have probably gotten expelled, but I got off with just 2 days of suspension. I explained to my parents why I was fighting and they understood I was just standing up to an a*****e.
It just so happened that my grandfather and aunt were visting from Mexico during that time. That aunt is 7 years younger than me, my grandfather had another kid with his new wife in his 60s, and my parents decided that my punishment would be to babysit and play with her the two days I was out of school. I always found it funny that my punishment for fighting was being a babysitter so my dad and my grandpa could do more stuff without a hyper little kid around.
I failed PE, because I wouldn’t dress out. My dad was so flabbergasted that I got no punishment. My parents believed in beatings, so it was strange. Coincidentally, that’s when I joined marching band. (Counted as PE credit).
This genuinely needs a trigger warning. I only managed the first few before giving up on what is basically "my parent was an abusive POS - LOL!". If that's what you need to think for your own mental wellbeing then you do you, but let's not pretend these stories of children being hit / starved / humiliated by their caregivers are anything other than reports of historic child abuse.
My parents once caught my sister online after midnight, which they said was against the rules. They cut off the internet, but my brother just plugged it back in once they went to sleep. How old were we? Sister 24, brother 20, me 19. My parents neglected us and every once in a while when they got fed up would "put their foot down" for like a day, then give up. My parents were so preoccupied with their dysfunctional marriage they didn't notice we grew up.
When my teenage son decided it was okay to be VERY disrespectful and disobedient I took away all his electronics and electronic privileges for other rooms of the house. He could earn back one of his items each week for good behavior but would lose them all again for disrespect. After those 6 weeks, he never disrespected us again. Find out what the kid really likes or really hates and combine with natural or logical consequences.
I think you need to reconsider what respect means. A hint: It doesn't mean being scared of punishment.
Load More Replies... I am appalled at the punishments meted out to these people. Physical abuse is never the right thing to do.
When I was around 12, my mum asked my brother and I to clean our room, and we were watching TV. We basically ignored her, and she was getting more and more annoyed. So, my father just walked into the room, unplugged the TV, and cut the plug off. He then turned to us and quietly said "go clean your room". I've never moved so fast in my life. To be clear - I don't think this was abusive at all, unlike a lot of the examples in this list, but it was damn effective.
When I was 14, my brother and I forgot to do a chore (I think it was cleaning out the dishwasher), and when my dad found out, he screamed at us and he threatened to shoot the dogs. As if that wasn't traumatic enough, I told my school counselor the next day (not trying to get him in trouble, just wanted to get it off my chest) and she reported him to the police. They ended up talking to him (he wasn't arrested or anything) and, BOY, was he MAD about that. He straight told me that next time something is bothering me to just keep it to myself so I don't get anyone else in trouble. Basically, never express my feelings ever again. I still haven't forgiven him for that, but I know he won't remember anyway.
You have to be licensed to use a car, but not have children or (in the US) buy a gun. This explains a *lot*.
The only true thing you said was about the children. To use a car you don't have to be licensed except to drive it on public roads. Everywhere else (farms, private roads, rec. areas, ect) it isn't required. And i would add that no ID is required to purchase a car from any retailer. And in the US to buy a gun from a retailer you do have to have an ID and a background check per the law. Please stop spreading false info.
Load More Replies... So what I'm getting from the comments is that you can't punish children, or else it's abusive. If your kid doesn't like what you did, that's abuse. I agree that a number of these went too far, but it just makes me question what an "okay" punishment is because even some mundane sounding ones were getting called abuse.
As a 13 year old, we lived in the middle of nowhere, on a country road, surrounded by corn fields in an ancient farmhouse. Punishment was making me pick corn in the dark until Reckoning Hour. I lost a toe or two to the Reckoner, but believe me, by the time I was 16, I never sassed my elders again!
Not by a parent and not necessarily a 'punishment' per se but it stung. When I was 14 during history class my teacher stepped out of the room for a moment, while he was gone I went to his desk and got out an unopened box of #2 pencils (around 15-20 count) sharpened all of them and stuck them in the ceiling tiles above his desk. I was hoping for the response a typical jackass teenager would want when he returned and noticed them; who did this? You're going to be in trouble when I find out ect. To my dismay, he looked up, crossed his arms and said "Simple minds simply amused". Almost 40yrs later I still feel the burn. Mr. Grove educated me more than he ever knew that day.
I was a massive introvert, so grounding me never worked. The one thing that worked was the punishment for when I ate in my room like I wasn't supposed to. We lived in the Philippines, so roaches were a big problem (ants too). But I loved eating and reading at the same time in my bed. Every time I got caught, my door was taken away for a week. I mostly stopped eating in my room after not too many times.
this is why america needs to instill a "licence to procreate" policy as told in an inconvenient book by glen beck
As a younger child, our nanny glued grains of rice to a wooden broom handle, then would have us kneel on the broom handle while we said our chants. If we erred in the chants, we had to start over, holding an ice cube in each hand. If we erred a second time, she would turn on a space heater about 3 inches from our feet. Needless to say, I never made an error in chants after age 6!
Whenever I annoyed my dad in public he would look at me and say that's a lap, and even if I annoyed him the tiniest bit he would add another lap. When we went home afterwards he would make me run around our entire half acre backyard for as many laps as he had counted. The ground is super uneven and I would sprain my ankle but he would just say I was being dramatic and told me to keep going as I cried the whole way. :)
When my daughters were little (about 15 yrs ago), I banned them from singing the song from Ponyo, because they sang it *constantly*. punishment was to be grounded from the computer/videos for a month. They reminded me about it about a year ago and I lifted the ban, but they didn't sing it. Oh, well.
So sad to read these stories of abuse that people suffered such a long time ago, the kids couldn't do anything about it at the time, and no-one can now.
As with many BP lists, it would be really nice to hear the other side(s) of the stories.
so basically parents who are reasonable and parents who are abusive. ok.
My wife and I used to talk about our first son "Mitchel" who we sold to the circus whenever our other two boys would act up. They figured out he was made up in elementary school after asking Grandma about him. Worked for about 7 years.
You punished your children by threatening to traffick them? Way to go, Marcus.
Load More Replies... This genuinely needs a trigger warning. I only managed the first few before giving up on what is basically "my parent was an abusive POS - LOL!". If that's what you need to think for your own mental wellbeing then you do you, but let's not pretend these stories of children being hit / starved / humiliated by their caregivers are anything other than reports of historic child abuse.
My parents once caught my sister online after midnight, which they said was against the rules. They cut off the internet, but my brother just plugged it back in once they went to sleep. How old were we? Sister 24, brother 20, me 19. My parents neglected us and every once in a while when they got fed up would "put their foot down" for like a day, then give up. My parents were so preoccupied with their dysfunctional marriage they didn't notice we grew up.
When my teenage son decided it was okay to be VERY disrespectful and disobedient I took away all his electronics and electronic privileges for other rooms of the house. He could earn back one of his items each week for good behavior but would lose them all again for disrespect. After those 6 weeks, he never disrespected us again. Find out what the kid really likes or really hates and combine with natural or logical consequences.
I think you need to reconsider what respect means. A hint: It doesn't mean being scared of punishment.
Load More Replies... I am appalled at the punishments meted out to these people. Physical abuse is never the right thing to do.
When I was around 12, my mum asked my brother and I to clean our room, and we were watching TV. We basically ignored her, and she was getting more and more annoyed. So, my father just walked into the room, unplugged the TV, and cut the plug off. He then turned to us and quietly said "go clean your room". I've never moved so fast in my life. To be clear - I don't think this was abusive at all, unlike a lot of the examples in this list, but it was damn effective.
When I was 14, my brother and I forgot to do a chore (I think it was cleaning out the dishwasher), and when my dad found out, he screamed at us and he threatened to shoot the dogs. As if that wasn't traumatic enough, I told my school counselor the next day (not trying to get him in trouble, just wanted to get it off my chest) and she reported him to the police. They ended up talking to him (he wasn't arrested or anything) and, BOY, was he MAD about that. He straight told me that next time something is bothering me to just keep it to myself so I don't get anyone else in trouble. Basically, never express my feelings ever again. I still haven't forgiven him for that, but I know he won't remember anyway.
You have to be licensed to use a car, but not have children or (in the US) buy a gun. This explains a *lot*.
The only true thing you said was about the children. To use a car you don't have to be licensed except to drive it on public roads. Everywhere else (farms, private roads, rec. areas, ect) it isn't required. And i would add that no ID is required to purchase a car from any retailer. And in the US to buy a gun from a retailer you do have to have an ID and a background check per the law. Please stop spreading false info.
Load More Replies... So what I'm getting from the comments is that you can't punish children, or else it's abusive. If your kid doesn't like what you did, that's abuse. I agree that a number of these went too far, but it just makes me question what an "okay" punishment is because even some mundane sounding ones were getting called abuse.
As a 13 year old, we lived in the middle of nowhere, on a country road, surrounded by corn fields in an ancient farmhouse. Punishment was making me pick corn in the dark until Reckoning Hour. I lost a toe or two to the Reckoner, but believe me, by the time I was 16, I never sassed my elders again!
Not by a parent and not necessarily a 'punishment' per se but it stung. When I was 14 during history class my teacher stepped out of the room for a moment, while he was gone I went to his desk and got out an unopened box of #2 pencils (around 15-20 count) sharpened all of them and stuck them in the ceiling tiles above his desk. I was hoping for the response a typical jackass teenager would want when he returned and noticed them; who did this? You're going to be in trouble when I find out ect. To my dismay, he looked up, crossed his arms and said "Simple minds simply amused". Almost 40yrs later I still feel the burn. Mr. Grove educated me more than he ever knew that day.
I was a massive introvert, so grounding me never worked. The one thing that worked was the punishment for when I ate in my room like I wasn't supposed to. We lived in the Philippines, so roaches were a big problem (ants too). But I loved eating and reading at the same time in my bed. Every time I got caught, my door was taken away for a week. I mostly stopped eating in my room after not too many times.
this is why america needs to instill a "licence to procreate" policy as told in an inconvenient book by glen beck
As a younger child, our nanny glued grains of rice to a wooden broom handle, then would have us kneel on the broom handle while we said our chants. If we erred in the chants, we had to start over, holding an ice cube in each hand. If we erred a second time, she would turn on a space heater about 3 inches from our feet. Needless to say, I never made an error in chants after age 6!
Whenever I annoyed my dad in public he would look at me and say that's a lap, and even if I annoyed him the tiniest bit he would add another lap. When we went home afterwards he would make me run around our entire half acre backyard for as many laps as he had counted. The ground is super uneven and I would sprain my ankle but he would just say I was being dramatic and told me to keep going as I cried the whole way. :)
When my daughters were little (about 15 yrs ago), I banned them from singing the song from Ponyo, because they sang it *constantly*. punishment was to be grounded from the computer/videos for a month. They reminded me about it about a year ago and I lifted the ban, but they didn't sing it. Oh, well.
So sad to read these stories of abuse that people suffered such a long time ago, the kids couldn't do anything about it at the time, and no-one can now.
As with many BP lists, it would be really nice to hear the other side(s) of the stories.
so basically parents who are reasonable and parents who are abusive. ok.
My wife and I used to talk about our first son "Mitchel" who we sold to the circus whenever our other two boys would act up. They figured out he was made up in elementary school after asking Grandma about him. Worked for about 7 years.
You punished your children by threatening to traffick them? Way to go, Marcus.
Load More Replies...