In the latest case of parental creative discipline, a North Carolina dad made his 15-year-old daughter carry a large yellow sign on a busy street corner as a form of punishment for bad behavior at school.
According to this report from WCTI12.com, an ABC news station in New Bern, N.C., one side of the sign carried by Quandria Bryant read: "I have a bad attitude. I disrespect people who try to help me.”
Bryant’s dad, Donell Bryant, told the news station that his daughter had been suspended from school and was in need of an attitude adjustment. He said the public humiliation was meant to show his daughter that it was not OK to disrespect teachers.
Bryant joins the likes of Tommy Jordan, who recently shot his daughter’s laptop, and Denise Abbott, who X’d her daughter’s Facebook picture, in using discipline that -- while criticized by some and applauded by others -- shows there are plenty of ways to get your point across.
We asked TODAY Moms Facebook readers to share their own uses of creative discipline and explain whether it had a positive impact on their child’s behavior.
For Sian Houle, it’s all about checks and balances. She says that when her son “doesn’t finish a chore 100 percent, he only gets his cell [phone], not the battery.” She adds: “Why give him the full ‘paycheck’ if he doesn’t do the job?”
Treece Meers Sullivan says regular grounding has no effect on her daughter, who she describes as “a tomboy.” So she uses clothing as a way to discipline. Sullivan writes:
“I ground her from jeans and tennis shoes. I made her dress up for school everyday for two weeks. She had to explain to her friends and teachers why she was in slacks and dresses...Humility plays a very important part in discipline. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they just repeat the behavior?”
Shannon Ryan Wing learned a lesson from her own experience as a teen and the way her parents handled her know-it-all attitude. Wing comments:
“I slammed my door once to ‘get my point across’ that I was angry. Two minutes later, my mom and dad came into my room and calmly removed the door from the hinges…I was told I could earn it back when I was respectful. Being a teenage girl with no privacy was the worst punishment.”
When Jacqueline Simkaitis’s son was acting out, she and her husband decided he needed some company. At school. Her husband took off from work, sat in each class and “followed him everywhere.” Says Simkaitis:
“Now all we have to say is, ‘Do you want me to go to school again?’
Jutta Kapfhammer Helm discovered that her son had borrowed the family car for a night of muddy, reckless driving with his friends by reading it on his Facebook page. One friend had written: “Thanks for almost getting me killed last night!”
Helm revoked her son’s driving privileges and to get them back, he had to spend one full day confined to a wheelchair. Comments Helm:
“I drove him to school in my mini-van, took out the chair, he plopped down in it and he was on his own to wheel that chair up the handicap access ramp, and through the front doors of his high school. When I picked him up again after school, I asked him how his day went. With a big grin on his face, he replied: ‘It REALLY wasn't that bad, mom...I had girls pushing me around all day!' But I KNEW he had learned a valuable lesson.”
For Kelley Jones DeLong, one tried and true discipline technique comes in an odd form: hugs. Says DeLong:
When my kids are acting up I hug them that is just like a time out… Or if they are fighting, I make them sit on the couch and hug each other [until] they can get along. They hate it..it really does work!
What kind of creative discipline do you use? Tell us on our Facebook page.
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