1st really bad incident with my Teen

[xboxmom]

Please tell me it wont get worse than this....

Today one of my Son's Friends Mothers shows up at the front door. She brought along her son and another one of my Son's friends. Apparently they all snuck out last night around 1:00 - 1:30 am and walked to 7-11 bought Eggs and decided to egg the one kids neighbors home.

This is the first time my son has been involved in something like this. The guys whos house got egged of course was livid! Rightly so! We were livid with our son and disappointed in him because like all parents when this happens you think you have raised them better than that.

Anyway we cracked down HARD on the kid. We took away all his privileges, No cell phone, No computer, no Xbox, no ipod, no electric bass guitar playing, no friends all for 2 weeks! I wanted longer but my husband said 2 weeks was enough oh and we also made him cancel his end of the school year party.

Tomorrow morning he is going to wash the guys house off. But if there are damages from it we told him he will be spliting the cost with his friends involved and it will be coming out of his pocket not ours.

What do you think? Do you think we are too harsh on him or do you think this is good to nip it in the bud before he does anything worse? This is my first Teen so its trial an error. I just don't want to see anymore bad things like this happening again.

Is it going to get worse?!!?! Or will this punishment be enough to make him think twice? Or do I need to be harder on him?

Thoughts?!

[CA Dreamer]

Oh no!!!! ((((hugs)))))
I think your punishment is fair and appropriate. He will not die without those things and two weeks is long enough for him to feel it --and short enough so that you can effectively enforce it. Good that you and your DH came to the punishment together and can provide a united front.

Hope this makes him think twice (or at all! - sometimes, kids don't even think first...) before pulling something like this. He had a choice to participate in this and he made a bad choice. You are being very fair. I hope the other boys are going over to clean up the house too and are enduring the same level of punishment. It will help them learn.

Better something like this, where no permanent damage or anyone got physically hurt. Sigh....

[mariewilcox]

Appropriate for the same reasons Robin said. My DS is soon to be 24, and the only time he really did anything "bad" (at least that we ever found out about - LOL) was after he had his driver's license for 3 months.... I don't want to scare you so let's just say he didn't drive for a long while!

I have to say that raising a teenaged boy was much much easier than I KNOW it's going to be raising my DD through the teen years - that scares the crap out of me!!!

[newfiemountiewife]

I don't think you were hard on him at all. I tend to be heavy handed with the discipline, I want them to grow learning to respect other people and their property, so I would have done the same. I'm sure it will get him to think twice about it the next time!

[Jengerbread88]

I think you did the right thing... it's good to nip it in the bud and show him that you have no tolerance for something like that. On the one hand, if he felt pressured by friends, he may have done it to prevent being bullied. However, that doesn't make his actions RIGHT. In some ways, this now makes you the bad guy though, instead of him being the "coward," from a bullying perspective. I think it's important, though, that you show him it's not okay to do things like this.

I never did anything like that in my teen years. However, once my parents told me that I had to be home by 5pm for some sort of family activity. Around 4:49 I realized that I was stuck in traffic and there's no way I'd be home in time. I called them to let them know where I was and when I assumed I would be home, and when I got home, they grounded me, because I didn't plan for the traffic. For me, I felt at the time like it was really harsh (how was I supposed to know there'd be traffic???) but it's actually helped me a lot-- I had a similar situation with my university, where I was late due to unexpected traffic, and actually got my grade docked. It made me realize my parents, who seemed harsh, were actually preparing me for the real world, where you HAVE to plan for traffic. I haven't had my grade docked for tardiness since! :P

Sometimes, being harsh is the best way to teach them a life lesson. My incident with lateness was 7 years ago, but it still sticks with me because it helped me learn several things:
a) My parents love me enough to teach me, even if being punished sucks.
b) What I did isn't acceptable adult behavior. If I want to be treated like an adult, I need to learn to behave like one.
c) Privileges are directly related to my behavior. If I work hard and follow the rules, in the end, I'll get all of my benefits and "rights."

Good luck, and hopefully this is the last bad incident you have. :: hugs :: Hang in there-- I know punishing kids is as hard, or harder, on you than it is on them!

[Paula]

I think you did the right thing and no, I don't think it was harsh at all.

[cardinalskate]

Originally Posted by CA Dreamer

Oh no!!!! ((((hugs)))))
I think your punishment is fair and appropriate. He will not die without those things and two weeks is long enough for him to feel it --and short enough so that you can effectively enforce it. Good that you and your DH came to the punishment together and can provide a united front.

Hope this makes him think twice (or at all! - sometimes, kids don't even think first...) before pulling something like this. He had a choice to participate in this and he made a bad choice. You are being very fair. I hope the other boys are going over to clean up the house too and are enduring the same level of punishment. It will help them learn.

Better something like this, where no permanent damage or anyone got physically hurt. Sigh....

Yes, this.

And big hugs. I know it's gotta be hard for you as parents. But this one bad act doesn't make him a bad kid, nor does it mean he's gonna be a problem child in the future.

[gracelikerain]

Perfectly appropriate consequences in my opinion. Good for you. It's hard to punish, but your kids will be much better off because of it !

[scrappurple]

Nope, I think you did the right thing. Especially paying for damages from his pocket. I can't tell you how many parents I know would blow it off. WTG mom {and dad}. He needs to know this is not o.k. And you are doing a great job raising him.

In the grand scheme of things, if this is the worst that he does, then you are doing an amazing job!! One thing to keep in mind, at least I do with my teenage dd, is that right now their brains are not connected and they can not make wise choices. Literally. I read a study and it had a picture of a woman mad. In the study most teens could not tell what emotion the lady was displaying. My dd is a very ground girl and I knew she could guess the emotion so I had her come over and look at the picture. She had NO.CLUE. I was speechless. So I had her read the study and told her that when I tell her that her brain is not connecting, she needs to listen to me that she is not making a wise choice. Keep in mind that your son's brain is not totally working yet. hehe. BUT don't back down on the grounding.

[hmlentz]

Yeah you for taking it seriously! I think they need to learn their lessons when the consequences are relatively easy to deal with because the consequences get way worse very quickly. You go from punishment by mom and dad to punishment by the state and that's a whole lot harder to deal with.

[Penny Springmann]

Kim, I think the punishment is totally appropriate. Good luck living with him the next two weeks!!

[color of my heart]

perfectly appropriate, in my opinion. if my brother or i had done something like that? my parents would have taken the same route with punishment- no tv, no phone, no computer, no nothing.

and i'm with penny- good luck for the next two weeks! i hope both a) he doesn't get out of control, and b) you survive and don't kill him.

[jessica31876]

With me having three teens one of who is less then 6 months from being 20 Id say yes you probably have a few more incidents to deal with. You might get lucky though and this will be the only one. With my daughter she was good at hiding the stuff she did she knew I would not approve of. Like smoking. We do not smoke and think it is a horrible nasty habit. I drilled that into her head since she was little. Did not stop her from starting when all her friends were doing it. She also dipped for a little while. Which ewww dipping for a girl? Thats beyond nasty. Thankfully she quit both. I found when my daughter was with kids who I approved of she was much better behaved and when she was busy with after school stuff and work she got into less trouble. It is when she did not have anything to do that she acted up. So my best advice is to keep him BUSY!! LOL And no I dont think the punishment is to harsh. One of my daughters punishments was losing her ability to get her license until she turned 18. She was so angry at me for that but she was driving on a learmers permit without a driver over 21 in the car and backed into a car and then left the scene. Someone saw them and reported the tag number. Then she lied to me about it. I told my husband I think she should have been hauled off to jail for a night to scare some sense into her. My husband did not agree. So the compromise was she pay the fines she got and she lost her learners permit and could not go get her regular drivers license. The cop at the scene agreed with my husband. he sasid scaring her by putting her in the back of his car was enough. That whole scene would not have been bad at all if she had just stayed at the scene or left her info.

[nun69]

I say you did the right thing

[CA Dreamer]

How is this morning going? Thinking of you!

[Leah]

Kim, you did good. I think you handled it perfectly. In addition to cleaning up the damages, etc., will he have to apologize to the homeowners?

It sucks, but you did good. {{hugs}}

[JulieB146]

Originally Posted by jessica31876

She also dipped for a little while. Which ewww dipping for a girl? Thats beyond nasty.

What is "dipping"? I never heard of it.

Oh, okay: chewing tobacco. Yech.

[CA Dreamer]

I saw this interesting article awhile back. It is about teens and peers

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...%20pope&st=cse

[AmyG]

Sounds fair to me. I'd do the same thing! Hugs!

[jessica31876]

umm yea thats what I said when I found out. It is worse then smoking IMO. Luckily she regained her sense and stopped both!!

Originally Posted by JulieB146

What is "dipping"? I never heard of it.

Oh, okay: chewing tobacco. Yech.

[jessica31876]

Ohhh yes friends have a great influence on peers. You can take a really good kid and put him/her with a group of other teens and all it takes is one of them to get a bad idea to talk all or most of them into doing it as well.

Originally Posted by CA Dreamer

I saw this interesting article awhile back. It is about teens and peers

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...%20pope&st=cse

[carriesmom]

You were more than appropriate. My kids aren't even close to being teens yet but I work as an attorney defending juveniles in delinquency proceedings for 3 1/2 years. The kids whose parents instituted punishment outside of what the courts did, seem far more likely to not repeat the bad behavior. Especially cancelling the party. It send the clear message that if you don't act the way you are supposed to, you will not get to do the fun stuff you want to do. In the end, he will hopefully come to realize that you did it because you love him and just want him to be the best person he can be.