Crime and Punishment-A Family Approach-Social Issues

Question

What are the consequences (mainly in their social life and social development) of depriving your child of their liberty as a form of punishment?

I am not looking (only) for studies on the effects of grounding. In the light of the eventual negative consequences I am (also) looking for (better) alternatives. So I wanted to highlight the alternatives I have already thought of and why I think they are worse (if I am wrong which I doupt and they are better there might be some paper comparing effectiveness and consequences/drawbacks I just firmly believe that I am not wrong and the listed options are worse than sending them to their room).

I don't mean actually jailing them or turning the house or their room in a jail I mean sending them to their electronic free (not dark) room alone (still letting them go out of their room to bathe, eat and use the bathroom) and depriving them for some days of their social life and freedom (easier to do in summer or on holidays, in winter allow them to exit their room to go to school).

I am against "natural consequences" parents need to be proactive and artificially punish immediatly and not wait for natural consequences. When natural consequences come it will probably be too late. States in general don't allow the brutality of natural consequences either. They send the person to jail instead of allowing revenge.

I am against assigning duties and chores forced labour is prohibited in most States and even when it is allowed forced labour is parsimoniously handed out as punishment. I don't want them to identify chores with punishment and something bad. I want them to identify it as some duty (which is why I want to keep chores and duties idependent).

I am against corporal punishment since I am doubting their effectiveness and their pedagogical character.

I am against simply taking away electronics. And withdrawing some privilages. I am afraid that by taking away something they will identify it as something good. So I am afraid they will be prone to getting addicted to electronics and video-games if I take them away. In the other hand I don't think someone can get addicted to freedom and social life.

I am willing to relax the demand that Ignorantia juris non excusat (Ignorance of law is not forgiven) and let the first wrongdoing go unpunished (generally there is no rule in the house before the first wrongdoing so nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege there is no crime nor punishment withot/in the absence of some rule prohibiting the act and threatening some punishment) in turn I don't expect a formal due process (first wrong doing->setting and explaining the rule and threatening a specific punishment, second wrong doing-> asking for an explanation and handing out the punishment which would be room seclusion for some days).

My problem is that I don't know what are the consequences (mainly in their social lives) of making them miss a couple of weekends with their friends or in summer keep them in their room for 10-20 consequent days.

I appreciate (I believe/understand) that out of the options the "jail" type punishment is the most effective and pedagogical (please correct me if I am wrong) but maybe there are other alternatives to an artificial punishment which are more effective, more pedagogical, with fewer drawbacks that I haven't thought of.

Answer 1

It would be helpful to know the age of your children that you're referring too, since age and what's appropriate discipline are closely tied together.

You've listed a number of parenting strategies that work for some parents but not for all.

The loss of privilages, loss of toys, loss of electronic devices and/or time to play, are the most effective parenting tools that I used with my kids. Used in the way I describe below, the outcome for my kids was only positive.

In my experience, discpline that removes a privilage/toy/electronic device from a child for breaking a rule is best done one day at a time. Removing the privilage/toy/electronic devic allows the child to experience a direct consequence for the rest of the current day, or in the next day, and also gives them the reassurance and respect of knowing that they get to try again, the next day or the day after.

Children, even our teens, break rules because that's how they learn about that rule, and as they get older the rules become more complex. Repitition in breaking a rule should be expected to some degree, and then addressed if it continues by changing or adding to the rule.

---

For example, for a child living with me, let's say I set a limit of 2 hours of time playing video games per day, and after 2 hours I remind my child that it's time to stop, but they decide to continue.

In this case they've already used their time for the current day, and gone beyond that time, so the consequence that I would impose would be that they lose their time for the next day.

The day after, they get their video games back, and when I give them back I again remind my child that they only get 2 hours to play, and that I expect them to turn the games off after 2 hours.

If they go beyond 2 hours again, after I reminded them at 2 hours that it was time to stop, then they lose their games for the next day, again.

Two days later, they get to try again, but now, if they go beyond 2 hours, I'm going to take their games, and they'll lose them for the next day, and I'm going to change the rule.

The rule was that the child gets 2 hours to play video games per day, and if they go beyond that, they lose the games for the next day, but now when they get their games back they only get 1.5 hours to play per day.

If losing their games for a day and losing 30 minutes of their time to play doesn't convince them to follow the rule, then then the next time they get their games back they only get 1 hour to play.

If they continue to go beyond the time that they are given to play video games, again, when they get their video games back, they only get 30 minutes per day to play.

In my experience, having used this form of increasing consequences with my own children, after the frist one or two steps down in time that they had to play games each day, they decided to follow the rule about a the limit for playing video games on their own.

Once they started following the time limit on their own, we agreed on how many days they had to follow the rule before the time they could play games got longer.

1. they had a set rule with known consequences if they didn't follow the rule
2. if the original consequences did not encourage them to decide on their own to follow the rule, I would increase the consequences, which was also explained up front, so they knew what would happen if they continued to have trouble following a rule
3. once they could follow the rule, there was a way for them to get more of what they wanted by following the rule for multiple days on their own without any input from me

In this way, I taught my kids to work within a set of rules that they may not like or agree with, but need to follow, and I taught them that following the rules has benefits.

In my view, this way of parenting prepared my children for going into the world and having to deal with rules that they don't like or agree with, which prepared them for adulthood.

This is the kind of direct consequences that I used with my kids, and if this example doesn't resonate, there are other ways to increase consequences in a reasonable and predictable way that will encourage a child to change their behavior.

---

There's nothing easy about parenting, and each parent needs to find their own path through the process based on what works for them and for their children and their family situation.

When I read your question I was concerned about how 10-20 days of deprivation would affect a child, and it's unclear how it would improve their understanding or committment to a rule. I believe that that length of restriction will only serve to build the child's resentment and resolve to hide any misbehavior.

I would encourage you to find a short term consequence that affects your child, but also gives them a way to recover, to try again, and make better choices.