The Upside of Grounding

For reasons I will leave out of this post, my 16-year-old son has been grounded for the past 2 weeks. For most parents this means a sullen, mope with an air of resentment hanging around the house and sucking the air out of every room they enter.

Surprisingly, or not so given his personality type, my son took it like a man. It was not an unreasonable length of time and fortunately for him nothing really important was going on socially. That is not to see he was all that happy about it, but he did not make it unbearable for me.

In fact, it was just the opposite. I cannot remember the last time we spent this much time together. Let's face it, going to the mall with mom or having to dinner together is better than house arrest. OK, kind of a left-handed compliment but I will take it where I can get it these days.

I try to make the punishment fit the crime, and since this offense was not technology-related he still had his cell phone and computer.

The whole experience had a bizarre twist to it. The day he was grounded he started a discussion with us about positive and negative punishments and reinforcement. He went into great detail spewing back what he was learning in his Psych class and pointing out how we were doing this whole grounding thing correctly.

Um, thanks for the critique son.

"Wait, is this friggin' normal? Shouldn't you be sullen and angry at us, slamming doors and giving us the silent treatment?", I asked. "Actually, no", he said. "You were justified in giving me the punishment so I get it. I don't like it, but I get it."

Oooookkkkk... where was the camera? Seriously, there was no grey area in what prompted the grounding so I guess he figured sucking it up would make it go better.

And it did. We spent some nice time together. Did things we don't normally get a chance to do anymore. And it is surely safe to say...

He is SO out of here come Friday night! 'Love you mom, but really, you need to hang out with your own friends now."

Me? I is it bad that I hope on some level he screws up again so we can spend more time together? Ok, Ok, that would make me pathetic. I get it.

Comments

[the planet of janet]

i totally get this. i treasure the -- ahem -- forced time i spend with miss i'm-14-and-too-cool-for-school.

when her friends aren't around, she's amazingly chatty and friendly ... and even loving!

[Ilona]

Yup. Our grounding last month (the first for my 15-year-old) was a pretty nice experience, all in all. After attempting a few evasive maneuvres, she took it with good grace, really.

I did take away call and computer, though, because for her that's an ENORMOUS part of her socializing. Though I wasn't thinking this at the time, it's a safe bet that had I not done that, we'd never have seen her (except to eat, five minutes/meal). She'd have made up for the lack of face-to-face time with her friends online.

[Jerri Ann]

If you say so, but I think that's just weird.....lol.

[angel]

my knucklehead went through a brief period of sanity, where we discussed such things rationally... but it didn't last, and before long we were right back to the door-slamming-moping!

[amyz5]

i can't believe you used the term knucklehead, that is my husbands affectionate term for my son!

[Wendy]

I love hearing good teen stories. Keeps me from killing my guys before they get older.

[mom, again]

if either of my girls had taken grounding so well, I would have just assumed they were hoping for 'time off for good behaviour'.

thank goodness for my husband: my memory is so useless I used to forget anyone was grounded. He'd write it on the calender. They hated that.