Grounding a teenager: How much restriction makes sense?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My 14 year old son has gone on strike against school and just brought home a horrible report card. We don’t have a lot of experience with grounding our kids and I’m wondering what are some reasonable standards. We’re considering restricting, or even eliminating entirely:

 - ipod
 - cell phone
 - friends
 - TV
 - computer

What are some realistic standards? For instance, is it realistic to think that he could/should go from Friday evening to Monday AM without any of the above? And how long should the sanctions be in place?

2

I am not a parent, but it strikes me that “realistically” is an interesting word. What is your goal? To make him miserable enough to cooperate with your wishes? Removing all his available entertainment at once sounds harsh, but may be a lot more effective than removing just one or two. On the other hand, removing some but not all gives you leverage in the form of “and if you don’t obey, the next consequence will be the loss of X”. And a lot may depend on your son. But at some level, if he presently spends an hour a day on the iPod and the phone, restricting one may increase time spent with the other.

Given that this sanction is a result of your son going on strike against school, I think the sanction should remain in place until it becomes effective and your son dedicates himself appropriately to school–you get to decide whether that’s until the next report card or until he brings home a paper from his English teacher marked with an A or a Math Test with a B or whatever marker you deem reasonable.

3

My suggestion, which does not directly answer your question, but will provide enormous guidance in solving this and all future related problems, is to get and read John Rosemond’s ‘Ending the Homework Hassle’.

It’s an easy read and offers very concrete advice about giving you the tools to help you make this your son’s problem to solve, and not yours. (As for specifics on restrictions, the book goes into that and will give you some confidence to impose restrictions that work)

4

In my experience in the dark ages, grounding usually meant being cut off from communication with friends. That would mean no friends, cell phone, or computer, except for supervised homework use of the computer.

Don’t ground him for longer than you can commit yourself to enforcing it. No one I knew who was grounded for longer than a week ever served their “whole sentence.”

Also, do you believe these distractions are behind the school issue, or is it something else? If it’s the distractions, grounding makes sense, but if it’s something deeper, it’s probably just going to be frustrating and pointless for both of you.

5

Well of course you can’t restrict anything that helps with school, like a computer, if it’s for school-related use.

I’d consider giving him some sort of “progress check” to take to school for teachers to sign every week. Ask the teacher for current grade, homework to be made up, upcoming assignments, etc. Or perhaps you can circumvent the whole paper thing by e-mailing his teachers once a week?

Then maybe you can set up a “work to earn back” system. I’d figure which of those is the most important to him, figure out the “pyramid” from most to least valued. The better he does, the bigger the rewards.

I’d also consider middle ground. Like he doesn’t earn his iPod 100% back…but if he’s passing a class, maybe he gets to use it 30 minutes a day. If he starts failing that class again, he “loses back” the iPod.

I think the goal should be, “You get 100% unfettered enjoyment of all these things when you have completely resolved the situation” with lots of partial-rewards along the way.

My mom used to say, “Everybody works in this family. Your job is school. It may not carry a paycheck yet, but it will in the future. So think of your report card as your paycheck.” You might add, “Want to buy an iPod?”:smiley:

IANA parent. YMMV, but my views are these—

Tender love: Son, I sure hope you grow up to find meaningful, rewarding work. And if you have a decent career you can afford more of the nice things in life, like a home of your own, a car, vacations, and more. You can have a family, bring me some grandchildren, and so on. I care about your education.

Tough love: Son, if you think you’re going to flunk out and just hang out here into early adulthood glomming onto us, think again. My job is to raise you to 18…beyond that, it’s subject to negociation. You better care about your education.

6

As a high school teacher, I have seen parents use a wide variety of punishments. Everything from severe grounding for bringing home a B on a quiz :eek: to a not-so-firm talking to:rolleyes:.

In my experience, what works the best should have two parts. Part 1 serves as a consequence for the act. This could be anything from your list of suggestions or something else entirely. Punishments often work best though when they relate to what the kid is bring punished for in the first place. For example, you might connect taking away a cell phone or TV to his spending so much time using such items that he clearly doesn’t have enough time to also tend to his studies. Whether true or not, it may have a bit more worth in your son’s mind than “I’m doing this because I’m the parent and I said so.”

Part 2 should serve to help your son redirect his actions in a more positive manner. For example, since he can no longer be trusted to complete his work on his own, he now has to spend two hours every day under your direct supervision doing homework, studying, etc. If he has no work to do, then he has to read. You may want to set something up with his teachers so that they can more easily communicate with you when your son has an upcoming quiz or test or misses a homework assignment. Would he commit to using an assignment book? I have to sign off on several students’ assignment books on a daily basis. This way there is no doubt about upcoming assignments.

And I’ll second what lobotomyboy said. :slight_smile:

7

I’d have done just about anything for a “work to earn back X” system when I was in high school. I think that plan has some real merit.

The moment we started bringing home letter grade report cards is when my parents told us that if we ever brought home a “C” on a report card, we’d be grounded until the next report card. This was in late elementary school for me, and I think started at middle school for my sister (we moved), and that meant the grounding typically lasted nine weeks, or a full quarter. Unlike Harriet the Spry’s experience, my parents were perfectly willing and able to enforce this rule for the full nine weeks, including birthday parties for friends or ourselves and all the other really big stuff. I won’t say we never had an exception for one of those things, but I can’t remember it if we did.

“Grounded” always meant one thing in my childhood. Access to nothing. No TV, no phone, no going out with friends, no sports, no after-school drama. When the internet came along and I became an IM addict, no computer except as needed for schoolwork. If we’d had iPods and the like, you can bet your ass that would have been gone too.

My parents were understanding of the fact that some subjects really are a challenge for some people. While it started with “if ever a C”, it morphed over time to, “if ever a C in a class we know you can do better in”. So that C I got in Calculus my senior year didn’t cost me, nor would have the C in Geometry my sophomore year had I not also gotten a C in Algebra II. They did make it very explicitly clear it was for the Algebra class, and not the Geometry class I’d been struggling with all year.

I think they had good intentions, and it worked on me. I never got two consecutive report cards with Cs, and I stayed grounded when they grounded me. It worked less well on my sister, but she’s more blatantly willing to go toe-to-toe with someone. Still, I remember it as far too harsh a punishment, in that it was unrelenting and there was no chance to demonstrate that things were really doing better until nine weeks after the “problem”. Sometimes I wonder if my sister would have taken it better, herself, if there’d been a shot at less pressure sooner. I am certain I would have - my parents and I (especially my mother and I) had a huge number of truly epic fights when I was a teen.

Anyway, I would say that this is an example of a good idea gone awry. Their idea was that it wasn’t the stuff in the middle that mattered for college admissions and scholarships, it was the report cards, and that’s why there was no relenting even if things came back better in the middle. As I recall, there was also very little parent to teacher communication, and perhaps that would have helped. I do think, though, that being willing to allow a “earn back X for Y results” would have gotten the same improved overall grades with less anger and tension in the house. And, of course, if the grades had slipped again when “X” came back, it would have been more obvious (to me, at that age) that there was a case for “X” distracting me from my work.

8

OP, you might also give him some choice about rewards.

E.g. “We see that you’ve made all Bs this week in math and that brings your grade up to a 58. Not passing, but definitely a step in the right direction. Good work! Now, would you like 30 minutes of cell phone or 30 minutes of iPod?”

Getting to choose the reward is a big deal. And it mirrors getting to spend your money as you see fit when you enter the world of work.

9

My problem with grounding my kids was then I’d be stuck in the house with the little shits! :stuck_out_tongue:

Lots of good advice. I think you realize that correcting this will take more than simply taking away privileges a, b, and c. But I believe it’s an integral part. I’d start with the TV and cellphone, as I suspect they are the least important to his school work. Moreover, I assume you are paying for the cellphone, as opposed to - say - his iPod.

Then set up a plan for improvement, with regular progress checks when additional privileges can be taken away or given back. Also include added duties, not only household chores, but also set study schedules, maybe at the dining or kitchen table.

Also, try to get the teachers involved. See what they propose to get hom back on track, and to track his progress. Keep a better eye on his assignments, make sure he completes them well and on time, read them over before he hands them in, and require that he bring hom graded work.

Good luck. It will be worth it. I know many folks who let their kids bomb multiple semesters of HS. Tho the kids all came around, totally tanking multiple semesters will definitely reduce his options down the line.

10

If you think grounding for a short time, as a sort of wake-up, will work then I would say a few days of not going out with friends or taking away a phone or Ipod for a week or even a moth is OK. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the case here. If your son is just blowing of school then you are way past simple phone issues and you need to find out what is really going on. If he is hanging out with a new crowd that also thinks school is useless then you need to somehow (and this is not easy) get him away from those “friends” because they will drag him down with them.

With my sons I’ve tried taking phones (and beepers in the day). I’ve turned off TVs, taken remotes, disconnected computers, blocked websites and completely disconnected cable and internet. None of these addressed the root problems and only served to show my resolve (which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing). Find out why your son is “on strike against school” and fix that problem. If that problem is distractions from toys, then yes, take those toys and don’t feel bad about it. Nobody was born with the right to an Iphone.

11

Lots of good advice here. The only thing I’ll add is that when our kids got thier report cards we’d hang them on the fridge, good or bad, so that family/friends could see them. It is amazing how much of a motivator that was. When my wife and I would bitch about grades, it was expected. When the grandparents or aunts and uncles would roll thier eyes and ask about school, it was embarrasing. We came up with this idea after my son showed horror at the idea of his cousin discovering he’d failed music because he didn’t study or practice.

Prior to that, we’d tried just about everything we could think of, and none of it worked. In his later school years my son developed some other problems that started affecting his grades, and we worked to get that solved for him. But in general he knew his grades were the result of laziness and not ability. That’s one question you’ll need to address with yours before you do anything.

12

Another great, and simple, restriction is the bedroom door. Privacy is important to teens.

I would go to the teachers and figure out exactly why the grades are low–ask to see the breakdown. Don’t trust your son’s account, not because he is lying to you, but because children, in my experience, have no intuition about grades/percentages/their own effort. There are a million ways to fail a class–is he not doing any homework but doing ok on tests? Is he doing half-assed homework and failing tests? Is he doing fine on multiple choice stuff but not on written assignments? Is he failing to turn stuff in that he did do? (it is truly shocking how many kids can’t make it from home to school without losing five things). Do not assume you know what’s going on here. Hell, in my own class I am often suprised when I really look at a particular students grades to see the problem–they can give off very inaccurate impressions.

Once you figure out how he’s failing, then figure out why and how to fix it.

13

I am not a fan of the taking away the goodies approach. Punishment for past actions is stupid. If you didn’t warn him that these privileges would be taken away, then you shouldn’t take them away. All you are breeding is resentment, not efforts for positive change. Instead of punishing him for his past grades, help him do better this coming term. This involves effort on YOUR part, as well as his.

You want him to do his homework, sit down with him at the kitchen table until the homework is done. He isn’t allowed distractions (cell, ipod, tv, whatever) during that time. What you are trying to do is develop him some study habits. When he is done with the homework, he can do as he likes. If he starts rushing through the hw and doing a crappy job, don’t let him leave until he puts in good faith effort - this may involve you “checking” his homework - not for the right answers, but for signs that he actually tried. (more than 1 sentence answers, legible handwriting, showing work on math problems, etc). I know this seems extreme for a 14 yo, but some develop later than others, and don’t worry, you probably won’t be doing this when he is 18. I, as a girl, went through the same phase as a 12yo.

Finally, ask him why he is having such a conniption fit at school. And LISTEN to what he says, while withholding judgement until he is done. Then think about it for a while, see if any of his problems have merit, and try to address them.

14

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I can say that if he’s only grounded for the weekend, he’s a lucky kid. I never got off that easy.

15

My mother said that grounding a kid is like locking yourself in with a surly bear and didn’t use it if it was avoidable (which mostly it was).

Is this an abrupt thing or has it been coming for a while? Did he recently reach his level of competence? Has he got a girlfriend? Has he got a job? In other words, I want to know why he is on strike. Not what he says, though that would be interesting to hear. But you have to accept that he may not know why. 14 year old boys are not long on self awareness in my experience.

But I could come up with about a zillion things that might be behind it off the top of my head. Not that any of the reasons are sufficient to crap out, but of that zillion, at least a half a zillion would be either made worse or not affected by a punishment approach. Sometimes you need some clear boundaries and consequences; but sometimes a more, um, yang approach is called for.

In general,though, any object which is interfering with schooling has to go if the schooling is slipping. This is not a punishment, it is just good sense. If things are distracting us from more important matters, they need to be reduced or eliminated until the more important matters are once more the focus of our attention and the entertainment has been returned to its proper perspective. It’s easy to lose perspective, lots of people do. It is good to know how to recognize this and what to do when it happens.

16

He is 14. Acting up can be an alarm bell, especailly if its out of character, i.e if he has normally been good. It may be something at school, a girl for instance [especially unrequited love; that thing sucks :frowning: ] or bullying or general peer pressure, or just normal teen angst. He is becoming an adult, its a difficult transition, he will probably be unsure of what exactly he wants or be overwhelmed.

Not to say that it is any of the above, but at his age well worth finding out. Without preconceptions. They are counterproductive. As would be confronting him, it will only make it worse; especially when mixed with preconception; saying “its a girl ain’t it” will exacerbate it especially if its not.

Ground him, try to find the causes, DISCREETELY.

Finally wish him luck. From someone who had a messed up teen years, (despite having the world best parents).

17

When I went through a particularly rocky period as a teenager, they took away the phone, the friends, the car, the “out”…finally they took away my peanut butter. It was then, and only then, that I decided to straighten up and fly right. :wink:

18

What exactly does on strike mean?

Is he trying not to learn? Not learning well but trying?

Is it something intentional on his part, or are you saying this because of his low grades?

19

I don’t disagree with taking away toys and privileges, but I do disagree with the manner of restoration that some dopers have suggested. When he shows progress, he should be able to use his privileges immediately and at his discretion for the rest of the day. If he slips then he loses them alltogether. The point is that HE must learn to schedule his time and apply himself to get the reward. Monitoring the time he uses things etc, is micromanaging and overbearing. He does well, he gets his rewards for that period until he demonstrates a slip. It is immediate without being over scheduled and prison-like. Now you may want to limit his access to certain things, such as if he goes out, he can take his phone and play with it as much as he likes, but when he comes home it goes away if he’s watching tv. One thing at a time until he can demonstrate he deserves to have extra things.

20

I agree with the people who have suggested making a specific plan of action, rather than focusing on punishment. My daughter is only 11, but has always been as stellar student. Recently she kept telling us everything was okay, but we were suddenly getting red light reports from her math class. (It’s an experimental, computer-based, self-paced program that has a lot of kids freaked out.) So we scheduled a conference and came up with some concrete ways she could catch up to the class expectations. She wasn’t being “bad” or lazy, she just didn’t know what to do and didn’t have a clear idea about what the expectations were.