Just when you think you have done a great job and have an intelligent, trustworthy child, they prove you wrong.
J14 got up this morning complaining of still not feeling well. She's got the respiratory crud that has been going around. I had just decided that I would let her stay home when we got the call that school was cancelled due to the weather. It was ICY this morning!! So all 3 children were home with her in charge.
Well, evidently about 11 she called V to ask if her friend Riley could come over. Riley lives just down the street and has been over many times but, with J14 'sick' and no parents home he said NO. Well, unbeknownst to her, his workplace closed at 1 to let people get home- so he arrived home rather unexpectedly to find Riley at our house. To make matters worse, it turns out that she had bribed her little brothers with cash so they wouldn't tell.
So- she is busted. We asked her what she thought would be an appropriate punishment and she offered with 2 months of being grounded- with the exception of the winter formal. Now, I'll be honest, the first thing I thought of was not letting her go to the dance but I went through H*** hemming that dress so she is going!!
Our final solution is that she loses internet access for the rest of the month. Now that hits her where it hurts! Her computer will be disconnected from the router. She will have limited access via my laptop to the online version of her algebra textbook. (It's a nice option so they don't have to haul the heavy text home with them) and I'll relent eventually and let her check her email on occasion... but there will be NO instant messaging with her friends, no facebook, no booksie... NOTHING!
We had a rather pointed discussion about issues of trust and how her behavior was a violation of that trust.
As I said at first...TEENAGERS!!!
Oh, and we made her pay her brothers- because they didn't tell!
Sounds like the perfect punishment to me!
ReplyDeleteKris
LOL....
ReplyDeletemakes me glad mine are over 21! :)
Good idea making her still pay them. That amused me greatly!
I'm not sure I would tell her this but I'm glad that if she was going to do something stupid that it was something like this rather than something REALLY dumb. I hope it teaches her a lesson. Being grounded would mean she would sit in her room and chat with her friends on-line. She doesn't go out that often so it wouldn't be that big of a deal...but internet access!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, we made her pay- if you're going to do the crime- you're going to do the time!! That will teach her about bribery.