Punishments… the bane of any parent’s existence. When to
punish, how much?? You don’t want to over punish but you don’t want to “under”
punish either. Why can’t kids just all be perfect and save us parents this big
hassle?
At our house we were having a couple of problems in the punishment
area. First off Jeff and I are on opposite ends of the punishment spectrum. I’m
an under punisher and he’s an over punisher. We were having a hard time
agreeing what really fit what was going on, we were confounded and the kids
were confused, all of which made for some very unproductive situations. Looking
for an idea I came across the idea of a “punishment chart” (some call it a clip
system). Where the kids start each day “good" and as they do bad things they
progress down the chart to worse punishments (or consequences if you want to be
all PC about it). I created one and printed little pic’s of the kids faces to
move down the chart. (Jeff thought I should have used grumpy faced pics
instead!)
It has worked out wonderfully. Jeff and I stay on the same
page with punishments and the kids know what’s going to happen if they keep
acting up. Now if they start acting up I can just say “You’re gonna move down
the chart!” and it curbs things, especially if they have already moved down a
little. An added benefit is they are proud if they don’t move down in a day, “Mommy
I was “Good” all Day!”
