By now, we know that yelling at our kids doesn’t really accomplish much .
But what about punishments? It’s basically page one in the parenting survival guide. While the time-out is classic and soap in the mouth works, some parents are getting creative.
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We’re talking taking tequila shots with the hungover teenager and the wheel of punishment.
Keep reading for more hilariously brilliant ideas to keep kids on their toes!
The long winter.
When this Redditor and his friends lost the shovels while building snow forts as kids, the parents made the kids shovel the snow using pots and pans !
We can only imagine how long that took.
The Pokémon battle.
On top of taking her son’s GameBoy away (remember those?), one mom knew how to play it .
From there, she would threaten to release his highest-level Pokémon if he was ever bad. One time, he lost Charizard!
Manual labor.
“My parents always made us repair things we broke. One day my sister and I were rough housing and we accidentally made a hole on the wall. So my dad drove us to Home Depot and told us that we both had to figure out on our own how to fix the hole.” – Redditor aidan-fox
The wheel of punishment
“My mom created the wheel of punishment. When I would be naughty I would have to spin the repurposed board game spinner and whatever punishment it landed was the punishment I had to do.” – Redditor kimkimkimmy
The missed dessert.
The only thing worse than not having ice cream is watching other people eat it in front of you.
That’s what this Redditor’s mom did whenever they were bad. Revenge is a dish best served cold!
The Stone Age punishment.
“She took away every piece of digital technology I owned and each week with good grades I was able to earn back something, starting with my radio. I never remember music sounding as good as it did that day.” – Redditor LostInEuphoria13
The book report.
Some punishments are truly educational.
When this Redditor acted out, the parents made them read a book and write book reports . They were grounded until it was completed. Thank goodness Spark notes is invented.
Door etiquette.
“If I slammed a door really hard when I was mad, my mom and grandparents would make me practice closing it nicely. I’d have to reopen and then close it gently about 50 times, counting each one out loud.” – Redditor EuphorbiasOddities
The secret handshake
One mom knows that laughter is the best medicine!
So whenever her kids are fighting with each other, they have to come up with a secret handshake if they wanted out of their room. “I would hear them laughing their heads off while they were doing it,” they wrote.
The hangover.
“After a late night out of underage heavy drinking, my father got me up at 5 AM. Decided it was a good time for us to clean the garage – thoroughly. I did most of the work for 3 hours. Then he took me to breakfast and discussed the error of my ways, promising more 5 AM chores any time it happened again. It didn’t happen again.” – Redditor decorama
Gun safety.
One Redditor’s dad was taking no chances.
When he misfired a nerf gun in front of his dad, the dad made him go through a manual on gun safety . Hey, gun safety is gun safety.
The Hangover Part II.
If you’ve ever gotten sick off of tequila, you know that the smell can haunt you forever.
So when one Redditor got drunk underage, their mom made them take a shot of tequila early the next morning. Cue the sickness!
A spoonful of cayenne.
“I ate a lot of soap as a kid to the point it didn’t phase me and I didn’t mind the taste so they switched it to a spoon full of cayenne pepper.” – Redditor AGoldenGoat
Art class.
The creative juices were flowing with this one!
When one Redditor and her brother wouldn’t stop fighting, the dad would make them hold hands in the garage, watching paint dry .
Anytime they said something rude, he would add more paint to the canvas.
The shaved head.
“Parents allowed me to get a Mohawk when I was about 7 I think? But I started to act up and my father said “if you don’t stop misbehaving I will shave that damn thing off your head.” I didn’t take the warning to heart at all, kept acting up and sure enough he shaved my head.” – Redditor topninga
The reverse psychology.
One Redditor’s dad put the punishment in his children’s hands .
He knew the son was guilty, but asked both his son and daughter separately how long the other sibling should be grounded for. The son said a few days, while the daughter said a month.
In the end, he switched it around and gave the daughter the month and the son a few days.
Copying pages of the dictionary.
This is kind of like what we see Bart Simpson do in detention on The Simpsons .
But instead of writing on a chalkboard, this person was copying the dictionary . On the bright side, their vocabulary must be amazing.
The blackout.
“After getting into an argument with my father, I told him that I didn’t need him anymore. He simply goes downstairs and shuts off the power to my room. After hours of being stubborn and hot headed (mind you, it was the middle of summer and I lived in the attic…) I finally caved.” – Redditor Least_Tutor_558
The curse.
“When regular punishments weren’t working my mom said she was putting a curse on me that someday I would have kids just like me. I laughed at her. Years later when I was in childbirth I begged her to take the curse off and she laughed and told me it was too late.” – Redditor LaaSirena
If you break it, you buy it.
This Redditor’s parents used to make them repair all of the household items that they broke themselves.
One time, they accidentally put a hole in the wall and their dad drove them to Home Depot and made them figure out how to fix it on their own.
Cleaning out the horse stables.
For their 18th birthday, Reddit user innocentnerd decided that they’d go on a 24hr bender. When they arrived home to the farm, their father made them feed the cows, weed the garden, and clean out the horse stables !
Shutting off the power.
In the heat of the moment, Redditor Least_Tutor_558 told their father that they didn’t need him anymore. Without missing a beat, their dad went downstairs to the fuse box and shut off all the power to their room.
Calling the bluff.
“As a little kid I was being a [expletive] and told my mom I wish she was gone or something and she packed a suitcase and went to the door and was going to leave all while I’m sobbing for her to stay……mom was brutal that round.” – Reddit user
Sometimes the worst punishment, is no punishment at all.
This Reddit user decided to take their father’s car for a joyride and wound up with a speeding ticket. When they asked their father the next day what the punishment was going to be, there was no punishment — only disappointment.
Couch repair.
Redditor StripesMaGripes was roughhousing with friends and wound up breaking their parents’ couch. Not only did they have to take care of the repairs, but they also had to provide three different quotes as well as a pros/cons list for each company.
The lecture punishment.
“I may be late to the party, but the most creative punishment I ever received was the WW1 lecture. I got in trouble for something mundane, and my dad sat me down and gave me a 3 hour[sic] lecture about the direct causes and nuanced issues surround[sic] the start of WW1.” Reddit u/lowhangingfruit12
The handcuff punishment.
Whenever no1ofconsequencedied would fight with their brother, their parents used to tie their non-dominant hands together and make them do various chores around the house. It forced them to work together in order to get the job done.
