When dishing out punishment, removing access to entertainment and games is the obvious first call. This can be difficult in the modern age. Taking away the TV means your child just responds by moving over to the computer – “but you saaaiiiid…. No TV.” So, it may be necessary to list the devices that are specifically banned – cellphone, tablet, Television, computers, ipods. Be careful of the blanket “all electronic devices”. When the kid responds “what am I supposed to do then” and you respond with “read a book”, your ban explodes in your face when your child then points out that the ebook reader is an electronic device as well. By this stage, if you are not sobbing quietly into your arms, you are a stronger person than me.

With punishment, I always find you need a fallback position. When the issue has blown over and everyone is calmly continuing with their lives and you think it is time to finally sit down yourself, the children now expect you to either fill the space of the banned electronic devices by entertaining them or playing with them or reading to them. This is all well and good and can create wonderful bonding time… until Johnny starts hitting Sarah over the head with the game board for “cheating” (i.e. winning) or you are accused of taking sides or your reading skills bored them after five minutes. This is when the fallback is essential.

 

Basically, it is the item that was left off your banned list that can now be used.   The lifting of any ban should come with provisos and the return to banishment on the breaking of ANY rules eg. fighting, calling names, sitting on your brother/sister, etc.   Listing all possibilities is impossible so don’t try. They will always find the one thing you left off.

 

The other reason a fallback position is necessary is that you may have overreacted in the first place. Of course, this happens very rarely, if ever, I mean, parents don’t overreact or jump to conclusions or make mistakes. Parents are superhuman. But in the off-chance that you may have lost it and banned moving, speaking and breathing because you had reached that point where an explosion was inevitable, you may want to be able to reverse your decision quickly without losing ground.

 

So then you calmly say “if you apologise to your sibling, you can carry on breathing”. I like to hold onto household chores for this moment – “pack the dishwasher and you can have the TV back” – gives satisfaction on two levels. A chore is done, the television is back on and peace reigns supreme… at least until the next time one of your children decides that using their brother or sister as a guinea pig in their latest experiment (“I wanted to see whether the water balloon I’ve been saving for 2 months would still burst and Johnny was right there”) or simply started an argument because “she was looking at me funny”.