Smart Punishments For Kids When Time Out No Longer Works

Smart Punishments For Kids When Time Out No Longer Works

7. Creative Punishments for Kids

1.Make the sibling’s bed or do their chores

– When the poor behavior is being mean to a sibling a great natural consequence is that they have to do something for the sibling. I use making the other’s bed or doing the other kids chore for the day. I tried this and I found that the offended sibling really likes this as a punishment for the sibling that bothered them. They can then get over the issue really fast because they feel vindicated.

2. Early bedtime/No books

– This one works great for my older boys. They really like to stay up later than their younger sister so it is painful to them to have to go to bed the same time as her. And that’s when I realized this is a great punishment for the two older boys…when they really fought it. For a punishment to be effective it has to be a real pain point for them and this is one my boys best ones.

3. Pay to Fight

– I have always loved the book Love & Logic by Foster Cline. I highly recommend it. One of my favorite tips is to charge kids $1.00 a minute to listen to them fight. If they don’t have the money they must earn the money by doing chores.

4. Writing Sentences

– Let’s go old school here. Writing “I will not disrespect my mom.” 50 times can be a great incentive for them to not do it again.

5. Extra Chores

– There are all sorts of systems for this method. Some assign tasks based on the offense. Such as not listening means 1 room of baseboards cleaned. Some have a jar filled with slips of paper with chores on them and the child must pick a chore out of the jar.

6. No PlayDates

– I have never been able to do this because I feel it punishes another child who has been planning and looking forward to it but sometimes we need a total reset. I actually have done something really sneaky to make this work for us.

7. Positive Incentive Charts

– I had to add this because we all know we are supposed to reward positive behavior and hope it limits the punishments needed. I completely agree but let’s get real…we sometimes need punishments for kids with bad behavior too. Let’s just make sure we are rewarding the good behavior in our house at the same time.