Any parent can send a naughty child to their bedroom or suspend TV priveledges, but when traditional punishments just aren't working, sometimes, it's necessary to take more drastic action. From making their kids go to ten hours of church in one weekend to banning them from eating eggs, these people reveal the creative turns their parents took to discipline them.
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#1 They Took the Router
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 the internet to play an offline single-player game.
#2 Curse in Front of the Mirror
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 bad word and I'd get sent to the bathroom where I could say any curse I could think of, punishment free, for as long as I wanted.
#3 He Fooled Her
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.
#4 Grounded to the Front Porch
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. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone except to say that I'm grounded and that I'm not allowed to talk.
#5 Hand-Fill Tennis Balls with Pennies
I had to fill cut-open tennis balls with pennies. I’m still not sure what that was about.
#6 Kneel on Uncooked Rice
When I was little, my mom's go-to punishment was to make me kneel on uncooked rice for about 15 minutes. I 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 I was grateful she didn't experience it.
#7 They Were Tied
My sister and I were fighting after I tried to steal some of her chilli fries and she stabbed me with a fork. My dad took us out back and tied us up with a rope so that we were facing each other. He said to us, "When you figure out how to work together, you will be able to get out."
#8 A Bird Will Fly In
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...
#9 Sit and Watch Sports
I was always more the artist type. I 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 until 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 player's stats or something else I couldn't have cared less about. I'm 34 and we still laugh about that sometimes.
#10 No Reading
I was not allowed to read unless it was specifically for school.
#11 They Took Her Library Card
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.
#12 No Dinner
They withheld dinner from me and I was only allowed to have bread and butter. My mother is a terrible cook so I was super okay with this.
#13 Drove Home to Be Spanked
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 two miles back home, spanked me and made me walk to school. I was soooo late.
#14 Splice Together Film
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.
#15 Lights Off, Door Closed
When I was probably five or six, 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 until 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.
#16
A little brother. I still don't know what I did wrong.
#17 They Were Supportive
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, "Okay, 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 fool around any longer in college. I buckled down and really succeeded.
#18 Do it More and More
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, to be honest.
#19 Clean Filthy Dog Kennels
I was being a little brat 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. He really hated it. It made me laugh and I called him out 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 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.
Even worse, she introduced me to what dog "anal glands" are, which groomers often have to "express." Around three times a day that week, I had to express dog anal 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.
#20 Wear Food
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. It was definitely a very strange punishment
#21 Hang Out with Bad Influences
They were mad I was playing too many video 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 did illegal stuff at 13 years old. They thought they were good people that would sort me 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 criminals.
#22 Eat Sushi
I beat up a bully, My mom had a strong conversation with me and then took me out for Sushi.
#23 Confiscated Everything
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, that he didn't know about. And that's how I got into listening to police scanners.
#24 Join a Sports Team
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.
#25 Sent to the Basement
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.
#26 500 Lines
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."
#27 Litterboxes in Bedroom
We had four cats. Mostly because I wanted them. But I often would "forget" to clean their litterboxes because it grossed me out. Especially when one of the cats wasn't feeling well. I couldn't stand the stench. So I often just kept putting it off until someone else did. After my mom got tired of this, I came home from high school one day to find all of the litterboxes moved into my bedroom.
I was told they would stay there for a week. I was not allowed to open windows, or to sleep anywhere besides my bedroom. She also replaced the litter we were using to a brand with no odor reduction. It doesn't sound like much... but oh my god it was horrible. I would have much rather been spanked.
#28 Pick Up Leaves
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 eight. The crime, you ask? I had scared my dog by accident and the dog knocked over her water.
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#29 Hard Rolls and Water
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.
#30 Sent to Parents' Room
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 one channel in well. Most boring night ever.
#31 Double Punishment
My brother was caught shoplifting videogames at the age of 14. I was 10, at home and totally unaware of what he was doing at the time. The police had been called, and my parents had to pick him up at the station (a scared straight kind of thing). Understandably, he was lectured and grounded from video games plus certain other privileges for three months. Not so understandably, I too was included in this punishment. When I protested and pleaded my undisputed innocence, the only reply was a confusing mishmash of contradictory explanations.
#32 No Trick-or-Treating
I 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.
#33 Write Essays
When I was preparing for high school I sucked at writing, particularly long response and 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.
#34 Dessert on Top of Vegetables
They gave me my dessert on top of the vegetables I didn't want to finish. The next time I made sure to finish my plate. Odd perhaps, but it worked.
#35 Individual Punishments
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.
#36 Church All Weekend
My mom 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.
#37 Deleted PS2 Saves
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 that year. So I deleted every save in his PS2. All of them. There were hundreds of hours of saved games. Never saw him cry so hard in my life. He passed summer school with a B.
#38 Standing Nose to Nose
If I got into "fights" with my brother or sister, we had to stand nose to nose for an hour.
#39 Banned from Eating Eggs
Banned from eating eggs. I was served broccoli quiche, and I could stomach it down but ended up gagging and spitting it out. My dad became upset by this. "You like eggs, you like cheese, you like pie crust, you like broccoli, eat it or you aren't allowed to have eggs anymore." I did not, so there were no more eggs for me. This lasted about two days before he recognized how ridiculous that was.
#40 Recite the Bible
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.
#41 Smell the Dog's Breath
Forced to smell dog breath. Because "If we have to deal with the filth from your mouth (swearing), then you have to deal with the filth from its mouth." I got this on numerous occasions. It sounds silly at first, but it was anything but at the time. I begged them to give me anything but that.
#42 Pretend You're in a Hospital
For some reason, my parents allowed my brother and I to have a very basic bow and arrow which we were allowed to aim 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.
#43 Biscuits and Gravy
They made me eat biscuits and gravy. I absolutely hated that food as a kid and my obese stepfather loved 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.
#44 Sent to Room
My dad sent me to my room. No biggie right? Well, that’s until you hear why. Reason: I did my 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.
#45 No Pokemon Talk
When I was six, I did something stupid that angered my dad and I wasn't allowed to mention anything related to Pokemon for a month.
