What is the toughest punishment you ever received as a child (or an adult)? Do you remember a certain punishment because of its nature or because you felt it was unjustified? What is the harshest punishment you’ve ever rendered out? These were the questions I asked earlier this week.
I have taken some time to reflect on these questions, and I have came up with the following answers:
The harshest punishment I ever received as a child was not a spanking or scolding. It was a simple action that spoke volumes. When I was in middle school (seventh grade to be exact), I would get up every morning at 5:30 in the morning so I could spend at least an hour curling my hair. It would take me forever to get ready, and then off my merry own way I’d go. One afternoon I came home and discovered that my curling iron was missing. After an exhaustive search, I asked my stepmother if she had seen it. Her answer was simply, yes. She had seen it, and it was plugged up after I had left for the day. I had forgotten to turn it off one too many times, so she took it (and all my hair products) away for a week. I was humiliated! I went to school the next day in tears. I remember my best friend taking me to the bathroom with a bottle of hairspray and fixing my hair to the best of her ability while the tears streamed down my face. What I remember most was the feeling of my pride being stripped and being slowly restored through the love my friend showed me.
Did I feel the punishment was justified? At the time, absolutely not. I remember how embarrassed and self conscious I felt. I thought the world would come to an end (it didn’t) and that no one would want to be seen with me looking so homely. How do I feel about the punishment now? I think it was more justifiable than I ever realized as a teenager. To this day, I make it a point to unplug heated hair devices before ever leaving the house. I learned a lesson, a life-long one at that. Isn’t that the reason we punish someone? To teach them a lesson so that the mistake isn’t repeated?
I’ve come home before to find the iron plugged in and on after being gone for extended periods of time because Maddie forgot to unplug it. When I see this, I become angry, and I’m tempted to make her go to school in wrinkled clothes for a month. What stops me? The memory of how I felt that week. The love for my daughter is so deep that I can’t imagine enforcing anything on her that could cause her to feel the way I did. But, am I doing her any favors by showing her this mercy? Am I being too lenient?
I think that the fair thing to do is show her what she did wrong and issue a warning. “Maddie, you left the iron on all weekend long, and we’re lucky it didn’t catch the house on fire. If this ever happens again, you will not be allowed to iron your clothes for a month.” Why do I do this? At the time, I felt that my punishment was unjustified because it was so unexpected. No warnings had been issued, except me being told I had left the curling iron plugged in and not to do it again. Why this was an issue was never made clear to me, much less what would happen to me if it ever happened again. I know that it is impossible for discipline to always follow a warning, but it seems more fair when it does.
This leads me to the third question I’ve been pondering. What is the harshest punishment I’ve ever handed out as a parent? The sentence is still being carried out. Take a look for yourself.
Yes. That is a monkey leash on my nine year old’s back. A repeated habit of willingly disobeying boundaries and wandering off without another person’s knowledge has resulted in him being harnessed and escorted everywhere he goes…for a week. The only time he is to remove it is when he’s in class, when he bathes, and when he goes to bed. Those are the only exceptions. Failure to comply results in another day being added. My hopes are that the lesson is learned and that he thinks twice before “monkeying around” in the future.
