How To Threaten Your Kid
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Right off the top I want to say to all you would-be chastisers that you should not threaten your kid. Love them, punish them, reward them, and negotiate with them. But if you do threaten them, only make threats you are fully prepared to carry out. If you threaten to kick them out of the house, ya better be ready to do just that, by gum, otherwise they'll be pushing back at every threat you make ever again.
I am not talking about dire threats, bucko. I'm talking about threats that are going to get you somewhere, threats that will get a room clean or the homework done but won't make your kid hate you too much. Threats like this:
- If you don't do your homework NOW, I am going to dress in a turkey costume, introduce myself as your parent and do a Thanksgiving presentation in front of your class.
- If you don't clean your room by X o'clock, I'm going to clean it. Everything I find out of place that I like, I'm going to keep. Or better yet, I'll give it to your sister.
- If you don't tell me where you are going and whom you are going with, I will get a Facebook page and friend all your friends.
- If you don't tell me where you are going and whom you are going with, I will hunt you down and join you and your friends in whatever activity you are doing.
- If you don't do your laundry, I'll do it with this lime green bathrobe and every piece of clothing you own - bras, underwear, socks, jeans - everything will be some shade of green. Yup. Every day for you would be St. Patty's Day.
- If you don't put the notebook computer away when you're done with it, I will use parental controls to restrict your Internet access to Disney Kids sites only.
- If you don't treat your nine-year-old little sister with respect, I will give you the same rules I give her. Yup, your bed time's gonna be 7:30 and you'll only be able to watch G-rated movies. Does that work for you?
- If you don't take out the trash I will take something of yours you really like and take it out with the trash every single day until you own nothing.
- If you are stingy with your sibling I will give them your allowance.
- If you slam your door, I will take it off and put up a curtain. Slam that.
A nice touch, follow each threat with, "You have ten seconds to comply."
Do I use these threats? Of course not! MY kids are good.
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Comments
I always liked to use the one of "I'll shave your head from left to right in a mohawk while you're sleeping!"
This is great, and soooo true...we've used several of those on our kids in the past, lol!
Can I add one more which always worked for me? When one of our angels acted up in the store...I would lean down and whisper in their ear that if they didn't settle down, I was going to pull their pants down, and spank them, right there in the store....worked like a charm, every time, since I never had to do it!:)
But, since you have such great kids, I'm sure you won't ever have to use THAT one, either, haha!!!
I threaten cutting off the internet supply to their PC's, putting up baby pictures around town of them, ringing their friends and telling them about their personal hygeine habits and a great one, for my 13 and a half year old son, friending every girl in his class on facebook and telling them he still sleeps with his blankee!
I also regularly go on strike and close the kitchen and laundry services, revoke the mum taxi rights for them, and i have even pulled the electric switch on the fuse box in the past when TV's were not turned off! Great hub. Who'd be a parent? eh?
You guys are great!
Thank you, Gypsy!
I like that one, Jmell!
I'm so glad my kids are so well behaved, TamCor, I am such a liar
Wow, Lou! You're like a professional!
LOL some good ones I might have to use... I use this one a lot... If you don't stop fighting with your sisters I am going to make you sit and hold hands on the front porch during the time the school buses make their run carrying all your friends home :)
Ohhh, feeweewv...I used to do that, too--I had forgotten all about that one, lol...another threat that worked miracles...:D
Humiliation is a powerful threat LOL
Darn tootin
Ha ha ha
haha, Tom, great approach.
Tom(my husband, I mean, lol) used to make our kids write sentences when they got in trouble.
One time he made our 10 year old daughter write something 100 times, and our 9 year old son write it 50 times, since he was younger, and was mainly just gullible enough to follow his sister into a bad adventure.
Well, our son whined and asked Tom why his sister got 100 lines, and he only "got" to write 50 lines...lol...so his dad, laughing, told him okay--you have to write 100 also. Our son shut up then, and sat down to write, happy as a clam!!!:)
We realized pretty quickly that that wasn't a very effective punishment for that child, lol...
Thank you, ReuVera!
Oh no, Tam! Your child is a *gasp* ... WRITER
lol Tom--You'd think, wouldn't you? Maybe he'll take after his dad, one of these days, lol...
You are so right about that. Empty threats are no good. You certainly do lose your rank. You've given some great tips. What works for me as far as the room cleaning goes is a timer an x amount of minutes, and an already opened and ready to be filled trashbag that I will use to literally throw away anything I find, stuffed and crammed in "hidden places" or on the floor. Once my son thought I would never throw away his clothes that he refused to pick up. Guess what. I did. And he had to wear the same two outfits for three months untill it was time to buy the next outfits. I have never had the clothing item problem again.
Great subject, Tom.
I had to write when I was punished as a child too!! Sentences like Bart Simpson writes in the opening credits of The Simpsons. "I will not disrespect my parents." It worked for me. I didn't want to be cooped up in my room all day writing the same sentence over and over again.
These are great! I'm going to have to try this.
Very funny, Tom but also good threats that will work and that can be carried out if they must without any physical harm. I like these better than the ones I used to get, such as, "I'm going to tear your ass up like a can of kraut!"
Ya, I can't remember how many times my mom said to me, "Stop that now or I'll kill you!" Luckily she didn't actually mean it...
Ya I've done something like that, Freida!
I'll have to try the writing thing, Ashley. Thank you!
Thank you, RGraf!
I found washing everything with a red towel made a bigger (pink) impression than green would have.. You're such a good dad!
Excellent -- the funnier the threat, the more tensions can be counteracted while raising awareness about the seriousness of the transgression.
Depends on if it's a boy or girl, Candie. My daughter washed everything with a red hoodie and was just fine with the result!
Exactly, Teresa. The funnier, the better.
IT is not treat,it is love.lol
One time , I took everything out of his room except the bed for a whole week, didn't misbehave anymore, he soon learnt 'the look' Wonder why?
I would love to see you in the turkey suit!
Girls wouldn't mind pink undies, my son would rather die!
Thank you, Kee007.
Ha ha Hawkesdream, you're like the atomic bomb of parenthood!
I'm sure you would like to see me in a turkey suit, Candie. I'd look damn good, too. Personally I would not mind pink underwear, but then I'm not an adolescent male trying to figure things out, I'm a 50+ year old male who knows he'll NEVER figure anything out.
Well there you go, you know enuf to get crazy and know enuf to know how bad you're gonna feel tomorrow!!. I doubt the name "Tom Turkey" escaped you.. but the picture of your tail feathers all puffed out has my heart all a twitter.
It's no sin to want a little tail.
Uh huh!!!! Just a little or more!!
That's right!
Great advice for me ... for say ten years down the lane! Thankyou TOm, you're mostly a genius at everything!
Ya, that's me, Genius LOL
Thanks Nazishnasim!
I was serious Tom - I really like your varied topics and how you excel at them all!
thank you, I like that style of your suggested threat. I think sometime we need to be cruel to be kind.
Nazishnasim, thanks for your kind praise. I'm off to read your latest poem again after this. It's very moving.
That's right, Click! Cruel to be kind - reminds me of a song
Wow Tom ROFL these I think would do the job. I can just picture you standing there hurling one of these across the room. Hahah
Tom, great ideas!
Unfortuantely, my kids speak squeak.
Blondepoet! How could I have missed you! Thank you
Squeak? I am so sorry, Ixxy.
Hello,
I was laughing when I read some of these threats. Some I have seen done such as the taking the door off the hinges for slamming it. Now my brother learned to clean his room the hard way. He was into computers and somehow a important hard drive got moved under a shirt and he stepped in it and broke it. He was very very angry, but he had no one to blame but himself. After the hard drive incident though, he kept his room clean. My god father when I was 9 held me over the koi fish pond in the back and told me if I wouldn't behave he would feed me to the fish, he let them suck on my toe for a second. I was so scared. I didn't know at the time that koi didn't have teeth...lol
My mom though was the cruelest of my family though. If you talked back, fight to much with your brother, got sent home from school for any reason (I got sent home alot for defending myself from the school bullie. The school had the rule "If I didn't see it, it didn't happen". Funny how they always saw me!). So if you broke enough rules or any big ones, she was on that phone to the psychiatric hospital telling them that you said you were suicidal. About 20 minutes later there was a ambulance in the drive way and the moble psych team asking you why you are suicidal. And trying to tell them you are not suicidal, doesn't work. They don't believe you. Every time my mom called, I was locked up there for 3-7 days every time. My mom thought it was great, I was getting punished and she didn't have to worry about it. Hopefully no one here will do it to their kids, I was MESSED UP by it. Spinal injury from being "restrained". The dude wanted to show me who was boss. I remember every 6 hours when the vicodine and flexiril wears off who was in charge that day. I am also deathly afraid of the dark from spending 14 hours overnight in the solitary room with the lights off. Only feint moon light came into the room from outside. I have PTSD from all the things that happened in there. It's horrible. And when you check the charts, it's not on there waht they did. Keep that in mind when you think your child will benifit from some time in a psych hospital. They do alot of things they don't tell the parents about. My mom even sent my brother there for shoplifting. As if he wasn't scared enough being taken to the police station in handcuffs and spending a few hours in a cell. She added the hospital for a week onto that. Because of what happened, I have not talked to my mom in years.
Sorry for the rant, alot of anger from what happened. Yes punishments are a good idea for kids, as is threats. But make them reasonable. Not extream as my mom was. Again, sorry for the rant.
-Stanley
Gypsy Willow says:
7 months ago
Funny! but more than a grain of truth here!