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• The Right and Wrong Way to Use Timeouts

  Timeouts seem self-explanatory: your kid acts out; you make him go to his room or sit on a chair in the corner, by force if necessary; the worst the offense, the longer the timeout, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong, says renowned child psychiatrist Alan E. Kazdin, writing for Slate. While timeouts can be effective, relying too heavily on the timeout as a method of punishment will do nothing to change your child’s problematic behavior. In fact, excessive timeouts worsen bad behavior—which means you give more and longer timeouts, which means your child acts out more, which means your home becomes a battlefield. Read More... Posted Jul 02 2008, 12:17 PM by Hannah Tennant-Moore with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: spanking, Slate, punishment, corporal punishment, alan e. kazdin, withholding attention, kids acting out, timeout from reinforcement, positive reinforcement, punishing bad behavior, timeouts

• Dad beaten after money stolen from 6-year-old girl

  This is a rough one. Three men, aged 18 to 20, stole $5 from six-year-old Lucy Tonkin on a street in suburban Newcastle, New South Wales. Her father, Chris Tonkin, confronted the men, who began beating him senseless. They only stopped the assault when two people pulled up in a car to see what was going on. Lucy was screaming, "Don't hurt Daddy, don't hurt Daddy," then she ran home, curled up in a ball in her room, and cried. Now, as usual, the details are even more interesting. Lucy had five letters to Santa Claus Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 09:00 AM by Brett Singer with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: news, australia, crime, punishment, wtf, Brett Singer, chris tonkin, new south wales, lucy tonkin, nsw

• Dad Gets Jail Time When His Kid Fails Math Test

  Talk about being responsible for your kids' behavior: A guy in Kentucky is serving six months in jail. Why? His daughter failed her math test and didn't get her GED. The GED was required by a previous court order, and even though his daughter is now 18 years old, the decision was rendered when she was 16, a minor. Apparently at 16 she developed a habit of skipping school. The daughter, Brittany Gegner, who now has an eighteen-month-old child of her own, says if anyone should serve jail time... Read More... Posted May 14 2008, 01:31 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, test, school, fathers, crime, jail, punishment, dad, math, court, sentence, fail, GED, teen mother

• Probe Uncovers Bad Behavior at Bootcamps for Kids

  A federal probe has evidence of shady marketing practices at "bootcamps" for kids, also known as residential treatment facilities or behavior modification centers. These places, in case you don't know, claim they can "rehabilitate" children and teens with serious behavior problems such as violence, defiance, and drug abuse. Since no kid in his or her right mind would willingly check into one of these joints, some centers "abduct" the kids with the parents' permission. Oh, and the federal investigation began with thousands of allegations of abuse, sometimes resulting in death.  What did the probe find?   Read More... Posted Apr 24 2008, 06:37 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: children, kids, parents, teens, discipline, insurance, punishment, abduction, bootcamp, federal, behavior modification, residential treatment facility, investigation, probe

• Girl Saves Lives, Gets Punished

  A fifteen-year-old high school student, Amanda Rouse, stopped an out-of-control school bus by pulling the emergency brake. When the bus driver fell out of her seat, she yelled to Amanda for assistance. The teen quickly put the brake on and the bus hit two parked cars and stopped. She then helped the driver up, who called the school transportation authorities. None of the 40 elementary school kids on the bus were injured, and the driver suffered only minor damage. Kudos to Amanda for her quick action. So what did Amanda get for her heroism? Saturday school. See... Read More... Posted Mar 18 2008, 05:03 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: health, education, teens, discipline, safety, punishment, heroes, bus, school bus, accidents, adolescents, saturday school

• Vice Principal Makes Kids Eat Off the Floor

  Sometimes I feel like a bit of a tool for reporting on all these wretched teachers and school administrators when there's plenty of decent ones who don't make the news, but I find these stories strangely compelling. Maybe it's the sense of anxiety I have as a parent, sending off my kid and telling her to listen to other adults who I may or may not always agree with. And I can guarantee you I would not agree with anyone making my child eat off the floor as punishment, as one vice principal at a Philadelphia elementary school did. Part of what makes this story particularly wretched is that it sounds like these kids were particularly vulnerable...  Read More... Posted Mar 07 2008, 06:28 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: education, parents, discipline, teachers, punishment, abuse, principal, fifth grade, elementary school, school administration, immigrant, ESL

• 20 Alternatives to Punishment

  Attachment Parenting (AP) is all the rage when it comes to babies, what with all the slings, breastfeeding-on-demand and co-sleeping going on these days, but it extends far beyond the early years.   The backbone of the AP philosophy is mutual respect, and with older kids, that often translates into finding an alternative to punishment - whether that means allowing natural consequences to take their course, offering constructive advice, walking away, or turning potential conflicts into challenges that can be faced together - is a key point in developing mutuality.  Not letting the children get away with murder, mind you, but letting go of the authoritarian in us as parents, and embracing the mediator, the peacemaker. Read More... Posted Aug 09 2007, 11:11 AM by Alisyn with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: attachment parenting, punishment, aware parenting institute, the parenting pit, alternatives to punishment

• Hello Kitty Shames Cops

  Police officers in Thailand are experiencing a unique punishment for rule violations like parking illegally and being late. The cops are required to do desk jockey work and to wear pink Hello Kitty armbands at the station. "'Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,' said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok." That is, unless the officers happen to be Hello Kitty fanatics. Read More... Posted Aug 06 2007, 04:24 PM by Kelly Mills with | with no comments Filed under: discipline, punishment, police, Pink, Hello Kitty

• Spring Break for Sadistic Parents: The Grand Canyon Skywalk

  The Grand Canyon Skywalk was unveiled yesterday, and after seeing the photos, the first thing that crossed my mind was, "Yep. That's one thing I'll never see." Imagine stepping out onto a glass bridge suspended 4,000 feet above the canyon floor, a height that surpases the world's largest skyscrapers. ...eff that! Get this: the bridge's walls and floor are built of four-inch-thick glass. The Skywalk protrudes 65 feet from the edge of the canyon then curves back towards the edge like a horseshoe. The Skywalk is able to hold 70 tons of weight, allowing for 800 people weighing 175 lbs. each to stand on the bridge, however only 120 people will be allowed at a time. All visitors will also have to wear special shoes to protect the glass and keep them from slipping. The Skywalk is built to withstand 100 mph winds and magnitude eight earthquakes, but what I want to know is, is it built to withstand the shrieks of freaked-out children?  And can we use a trip to the Skywalk as punishment for bad behavior? Something baaaad is going to happen with that thing. I can just feel it. Posted Mar 21 2007, 07:01 AM by Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: punishment, spring break, sadistic parenting, grand canyon, skywalk

• Anti-Spanking Proposal Down for the Count

  A proposal to ban spanking was given an official time out, as the California lawmaker behind the plan says she just doesn't have the votes to get the bill passed. Still, Sally Lieber hasn't given up. She wants to ban throwing, kicking, burning, cutting, shaking or choking a minor -- essentially making more illegal things that already are. Sounds like Lieber got spanked. But good. Her spanking proposal caught fire last month, landing in newspaper pages and on television throughout the country. "Saturday Night Live" even did a skit, featuring a nanny whose book, "I Will Beat Yo Ass," offers the best in parental guidance. It appears that after Lieber heard from cops, DAs and judges -- who wondered how on earth they'd enforce a no-spanking law -- she backed down. Her new proposal would increase penalties for doing things that are already illegal -- a nice attempt, but I liked her first idea better. Posted Feb 23 2007, 08:56 AM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with no comments Filed under: news, discipline, behavior, spanking, child safety, child abuse, Sally Lieber, punishment, corporal punishment

• File This Under Frightening: Babies' Mouths Taped

  A patient in a Russian hospital noticed several babies who had tape covering their mouths. The reason? Nurses were short-staffed, so to mute the little wailers, they used tape. The patient captured the scene with her mobile phone, after one of the nurses told her to mind her to mind her own business -- presumably before the nurse also taped the patient's mouth in the night .... "I heard that a baby was mumbling in a neighbouring room; when I looked in, I saw the baby with plaster over his mouth; he could not cry or do anything, was just mumbling," said the patient, Elena Kuritsyna, who was in the hospital with her own children. Read More... Posted Feb 01 2007, 02:16 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: baby, hospitals, mom, behavior, child safety, child abuse, punishment, abuse

• Anti-Spanking Law Gets Smackdown

  In fantastic news for baby beaters everywhere, a proposal to outlaw spanking in California is off to a rocky start, if this poll and the pro vs. con correspondence flooding state Assemblywoman Sally Lieber's office is any indication. As you may recall, Lieber proposed a ban on spanking kids -- with punishment for parents of up to a year in jail and $1,000 in fines. (Of course they'd call the ACLU if you spanked them.) In the past week, her office has received a deluge of pro-spanking responses -- a veritable smackdown, if you will, against the proposed law. At first, 95 percent of people rejected the idea (gee, wonder if spankers are prone to anger management issues knee-jerk reactions). Since then, the pro-spanking lobby has "mellowed" to about 85 percent. Try getting this one out of committee. Read More... Posted Jan 31 2007, 01:23 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 84 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, laws, spanking, smacking, parents rights, pro-spanking, punishment, chilldren

• The Great Spanking Debate: Sound Off on Maya's Mom

  Seems like the topic of spanking is everywhere on the internet these days, and why not?  There is probably no hotter hot button issue in parenting than spanking. The Maya's Mom folks are asking people to "sound off" on the debate in light of a recently proposed anti-spanking law in California. Go on. Take their poll and see where you stand. I don't know if your family is weird like mine, but we joke about spankings a lot up in this piece. (We think farts are funny, too.) We all give each other spanks on the bum. All of us do. And no one thinks it's funnier than my two-year-old. We rib the kids about getting kicks in the pants, and: we laugh. I know that there are a bunch of pinched, uptight folks out there who can't possibly understand that pretend spankings can be funny, but they haven't spent time with my family. We're not "abusers."  We don't need "anger management classes." We're just having fun. You know, like the people in the picture.   Posted Jan 24 2007, 11:04 AM by Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, discipline, spanking, punishment, mayas mom