Q&A for How to Ground Your Child

Let him/her downstairs for dinner or bring dinner to their room. Provide water and snacks in their room when it is not meal time. Being grounded doesn't mean the child can't eat and drink.

I think you need to talk to her about what they were trying to do by taking those pills. Explain that taking pills is extremely dangerous. You may want to take her to see a psychologist instead of punishing her. She was either trying to get high or trying to hurt herself. Either way suggests emotional distress.

it depends on their age and what they've done. As a rule of thumb, if they are six to 10 years old, 24 hours should be enough, but if they are 11-17, a few weekends or a week should be enough.

Try to disconnect it from the cable or move it elsewhere. Depending on the TVs functions, it might be as simple as taking the remote.

Some parents are stricter than others, and they believe the longer time the child is grounded, the more time that child has to think about his/her behavior.

If she's doing this through an app, you could try locking the account or controlling who she's connected to through the account. You could also take her phone away completely or replace it with a cheaper phone that doesn't have texting capabilities.

You need to be honest and truthful with your daughter. She needs to know she won't get into a good college with bad grades on her report card. Taking away her phone doesn't work, because she'll still talk to her friends at school. The most effective punishment I know is to take away her allowance money for a week. Without money, she'll have no choice but to change her ways.

No, grounding should be used for a couple of weeks at most. 8 months is way too much time; if this length is the result of prior groundings not being effective, it's probably time to find a new technique.

Well, this shows bad behavior, so you should talk to her about the language use. Teach her not to say it. She may not have any idea what it means or that it is a bad word. If the language becomes continuous, then consider grounding.

If it's a first time offense, ground her for the day. If she does it again, push it to 2-3 days so she gets the point that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.

First of all, do NOT beat your child. You cannot teach a child that physical violence is wrong by using physical violence. It doesn't make sense. A six month grounding may not be that helpful either. Talk to her and try to get to the root of the problem. Why did she make the threat? Does she understand that hurting people is wrong, and that threatening to hurt someone is just as wrong? Does she have violent thoughts often? Is she angry about something that's going on in her life? There's something going on here, so figure out what it is. If you need help, consider talking to her doctor and/or a child psychologist.

Make him/her do various chores to repay you for the money they stole. You can make them babysit for a sibling, clean windows, load the dishwasher, etc. With my child, I did not give them an allowance until they repaid me. I know a friend whose child stole $20 from their wallet, the mom made her give her all the money she had earned for babysitting for the following three babysitting jobs. She then made her miss going to the mall the following weekend to shop with her friends.

They are either too young, are bothered by something else or didn't completely understand what the grounding was for in the first place. Parents need to be very clear and specific about the reason for the grounding and what they expect the child to do differently next time.

Ground her for 3-5 days in her room with no electronics. Tell her next time it's going to be two weeks. You should also talk to her about what happened and make sure there's nothing more serious going on that is causing her to act out, like a bullying situation.

Depending on her age, ground her for 1-3 days if she is 6-10 years old. Ground her for up to 2 weeks if she is a tween or teen. The consequence should relate to the misbehavior. Because she went and saw her friends without asking, ground her from participating in any social activities and seeing her friends.

Make a deal. If she goes to the party, then she will be grounded next weekend.

Either the discipline you are using isn't strict enough, is too strict, or it isn't working at all. If you are too strict your children will rebel, it is about getting the right balance of soft and strict.

You should talk to him. Have a real conversation with him and see if he has any emotional problems that led him to do this. Analyze if there was a deeper reason for running away. Do some digging and find out who his friends are at school, or try to talk to his teachers and the school faculty.

It kind of depends on what he did wrong and how serious it was. A month is a pretty long time for most run-of-the-mill infractions, so it might be a good time to just unground him. If you don't want to do that, perhaps you could allow him to play the game for 30 minutes per day for the duration of the grounding, or maybe just 1-2 days out of the week. It's really up to you.

if this is the first time she has done something like this have a talk to her about how she broke your trust and the dangers of what could have happened, warn her if she lies again there will be a serious consequence, and if she lies again, then ground her for a week.

You can read, draw, write, sing, exercise, and reorganize your room.

Grounding is probably not going to do much to a six-year-old, like how a time out is unlikely to do anything to a teenager. Instead, take away the Legos and explain why it matters not to throw things.

For starters, know that when you turn 18 you are legally an adult and can, in general, do as you please. However, as long as you live in your parents' house, they have the right to impose their own rules. At 17, compromise is called for. Talk to your parents about the situation. Ask for a gradual reinstatement of privileges: you could first be allowed back on electronics and then later allowed to see friends again. Live carefully for now. You'll be out on your own soon enough!

If you are going to punish your child, do it as soon as possible. Delaying the punishment will give your child time to use banned electronics to find ways around punishments.

When you calm down, talk to your parents about the situation and what you did wrong. Have a conversation with them and see from their perspective as well. Try to be level-headed and not yell, that could make the situation worse.

No, I wouldn't recommend it. This goes beyond normal punishment and may cause your child to see it as the new normal and it would no longer be a punishment. If this is a result of previous groundings failing, then find a new punishment.

Lift the grounding. Making him angry won't help. Instead, use positive reinforcement. For example, offer to take him to his favourite restaurant if he completes the projects.

Don't ground him. While violence isn't the answer, his action resulted from being bullied, which is clearly inappropriate, too. Talk to your son to make sure he knows what he did was wrong and that violence is never appropriate. Talk to the school about this situation, and instruct your son to tell his teacher if the bullying occurs again, so that adults can step in and handle the situation.

Take away the vape and any other smoking products. Explain to your teen the health effects of vaping. If you feel grounding is necessary, one or two weeks should be enough.

That could be considered excessive, especially at 16. It could lead to missed homework and bad grades if it happens more than once.