Is it an out-of-date punishment?

P

arents are sometimes in the unpleasant position of having to discipline their children. Why? For the same reason there are laws, courts, and consequences. Drive too fast or park too long, and you may receive a monetary fine. That’s discipline.

Mother: “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to go out tonight. It’s a school night and you haven’t even started your homework.”

Teen: “But I told my friend I’m coming!”

Mother: “Well, I guess you shouldn’t have done that before asking me. Your friend will have to see you another day.”

Teen, grabbing Mom’s porcelain teacup out of her hand and smashing it on the floor: I HATE YOU! YOU’RE THE WORST MOTHER EVER!

Mom is shocked into silence. The daughter runs to her room, slamming her door and sobbing hysterically, while Mom gets a broom to sweep up what once was her favorite cup. This can’t go on, Mom thinks. Henny will be of marriageable age in a few years. She’s got to gain control of herself.

Mom has been working on the self-control issue with her daughter since the child was a toddler — teaching, modeling, explaining, encouraging, reprimanding, motivating with fancy reward charts, correcting, teaching some more, and explaining again. Now, at age 15, Henny still hasn’t figured it out. Whenever she’s upset, she says whatever horrible things she wants to say and does whatever destructive acts she wants to do. Mom knows it’s time for professional advice.

The Psychological Consult

After taking a detailed history, the psychologist offers Mom a strategy:

“I want you to tell your daughter that from now on, when she raises her voice to you or acts aggressively, she will have to write out three pages of lines that say, ‘I speak softly and act respectively even when I’m upset.’

Mom is astounded! She responds, “Lines?! Isn’t that what they used to do in school for naughty children? My daughter is fifteen! Even if I wanted to give her lines, she’d never do them!”

The psychologist explains patiently: “You pay your parking fines because if you don’t, there are more and worse consequences coming your way. Your daughter will write her lines because if she doesn’t hand them to you by whatever deadline you set, then she will suffer a far, far worse consequence that we’ll design for her based on what is most important to her in life. Meanwhile, the three pages will simply bore her for twenty to thirty minutes and that boredom will be enough to deter her from acting inappropriately in the future. Young people hate to be bored.”

“I can’t do it,” Mom complains. “She’ll laugh me out of the house.”

The psychologist responds, “How soon after marriage do you think your daughter will be divorced, Mrs. B.?”

Mom wisely decides to try the treatment.

The Science of Writing Lines

Fortunately, the story of Mrs. B. and her daughter ends happily. No more rage attacks. Henny now just buttons her lips and walks away when she’s feeling very disappointed, mistreated, or otherwise upset with her parents.

Let’s look at the role that writing lines played in her transformation.

In Henny’s brain there was a neurological pathway running from the internal trigger of “emotional upset” directly to the behavior of “loud, rude talk and aggressive physical movements.” Mom’s goal was to sever that circuit.

When Mom added a boring writing assignment to the end of the current circuit, the new circuit looked like this: “emotional upset” is followed by “loud, rude talk and aggression,” which is followed by “writing out three pages of lines.”

Once Henny started receiving her punishment, the young lady’s brain began to anticipate the coming plague of boredom. It then started to hold back the verbal and physical escalations. Mom had already done a lot of teaching over the years about the appropriate behavioral response to feeling upset with a parent, so she simply reminded Henny that when she was mad at Mom, she should close her mouth, turn around and walk away, Henny began doing that instead of yelling, crying, and smashing things.

Is writing lines an out-of-date punishment? In the sense that it’s an old, tried-and-true one — yes. Is it harsh, painful, humiliating, or unhealthy? Not at all. It’s simply boring — which is a deterrent just like having to pay money for parking in a no-parking zone is a deterrent for drivers. What is harsh, painful, humiliating, and unhealthy is parental anger. Yelling at a child to change her behavior can, when used frequently, cause lasting harm within the child and between the child and parent. While an angry parental response also provides bad modeling, a passive helpless response to a child’s outrageous behavior is an equally harmful model as it fails to educate the child in the essential skill of healthy boundary setting.

When all else has clearly failed, a simple writing assignment for older kids and teens may be just what’s needed to help put an end to unacceptable behavior.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 957)