<p>How do you discipline your child when he/she is at boarding school - and home during the summer. I don’t want to give details but I need to impose some discipline on my bs child and am not sure what to do. Grounding while at home makes no sense since all her friends are at school. And any discipline imposed while she is at school would be easily thwarted. I would love to hear any ideas.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>knock on wood - haven’t had much issues with my own but…</p>
<p>somewhat hard to make suggestions without knowing the offense but some suggestions:
at home: nasty chores imposed, taking away cell phone, computer, ipod, other electronics
at school: if things were bad, I would consider talking to an advisor and arranging early checks, mandatory study halls, things of that nature, also restricting or eliminating allowance for spending money</p>
<p>Mandatory community service? Gets them out of the house (good for you and them) and makes them appreciate their life.</p>
<p>I agree that taking away phone/computer/ipod is likely to be effective.</p>
<p>You can avoid a confrontation by simply calling the cell phone provider and telling them you want to temporarily suspend her line. They will tell you that she must have lost it or had it stolen (no category for angry parents, I guess). We’ve done it with my son who came home and told me “Hey, my phone isn’t working”. I replied, “neither are you, and when your grades come up, you can have your phone back”. Not my best line, but it was effective. It cost me $10 to suspend it (through sprint).
If she drives, take that privilege away. It is hard to punish some kids without feeling like you’re both going through it.
BTDT.
Good luck.
ZP</p>
<p>I love that line zuzu.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the advice. I think we will go with taking away the computer. We did that already temporarily but I think we might keep it for the entire summer. </p>
<p>I’m still at a loss as to how to punish her when she does things at school. This summer punishment is mainly for her behavior at school and lying about it. I would like to have something in my back pocket for when she returns to school and is completely disrespectful on the phone again. She doesn’t have a cell - but cutting it off is a great idea. Maybe I’ll give her one just so I can cut it off from time to time 
- kidding!</p>
<p>shut off texting! works like a charm.</p>
<p>I like the mandatory community service idea. </p>
<p>When back at school could you take away her ability to charge food at the grill?</p>
<p>Our case - take away his laptop !
I found out he spent most of his free time (and study time) at internet.
He maintains a forum about sports and music, it’s ok for me unless he knows how to control his time. We took away his laptop for the first two weeks of summer…</p>
<p>Is it a good idea to install the “spy” software which can monitor his activities at internet?</p>
<p>Is the subject of discipline coming up with many parents at this time because the kids’ grade reports are not good or say they aren’t working up to their potential?</p>
<p>I know texting was a problem for my son at bs and my daughter at college. I installed usage limits on their phones so they could not send or receive texts (except to my and my husband’s phones) between the hours of 8PM and 8AM. They both thanked me and said that yes, it was distracting to be constantly receiving texts, but neither had the willpower to just turn their phones off.</p>
<p>PA-C - in my case, this has nothing to do with grades. It’s a behavioral issue - and not what you might think. She has been fairly good, just not quite where we want her to be.</p>
<p>arling - We use Specter Pro to view all her activities on her laptop. We also have parental controls in place. She is aware of this and whenever we check her computer we give her the opportunity to fess up before we find stuff we wouldn’t approve of. This has worked well for us. We check her computer remotely when we can, and always check it when she comes home on break.</p>
<p>Assuming here that you are fairly sophisticated technically (from a PC perspective), you might consider (if you haven’t already done so) blocking social networking sites for a period of time as a punishment on her machine (this would take some remote login ability but doable). </p>
<p>That being said, punishment rarely effectively deals with issues of trust. It sounds like your D is developing a pattern of dishonesty which indicates a breakdown of trust. My experience says punishing dishonesty only creates a better liar.</p>
<p>I think your D’s dishonesty is a sign of her not dealing with issues (she is not comfortable with the level of parental understanding - a communications gap?).</p>
<p>On the lighter side, keylyme’s suggestion of cutting of the texting - the perfect way to make a mute teenager. LOL</p>
<p>goaliedad: I think that is fair description of what is happening. If punishing dishonesty creates a better liar, what do you do? I certainly don’t want her to become a better liar.</p>
<p>Are there other underlying issues that might be present that are causing the lying? Issues that may not have been dealt with among family members? Not asking for details, just trying to suggest something to think about…</p>
<p>The way to handle lying really depends upon the rationale behind the lie.</p>
<p>For example, if she is lying about her academic performance, it could be because she has developed a bad attitude about her coursework or teacher. She is making poor decisions about how to handle the situation and fears your disapproval of her academic performance and perhaps fears dealing with the teacher(s) in question. The “punishment” that I could see as appropriate is to require her to attend X number of hours of “extra help” time for X weeks with said teachers where she will be required to first discuss her issue. You can help in this by offering to break the ice, giving a general explanation of her fear or problem with the class/material.</p>
<p>However, if her academic woes are due to the distraction of things around her and her poor choices of spending time on facebook or whatever, the lying is motivated more by embarrassment and shame. I think suitable “punishment” for this type of infraction is probably more along the line of having her report to you (email is a good medium with a carbon copy to her advisor) on a daily basis her time spent doing schoolwork and how much time doing whatever with the expectation of her spending X amount of time (on average) doing school work until the grades improve. You will probably need some help from the advisor to validate the hours. However, the sheer presence of an audit is probably enough to send the message that dishonesty results in extra verification. The frequency also keeps her on the up and up until the behavior pattern of getting the work done sets in to habit. </p>
<p>The point here is that each situation is different and the “should have known better” punishment should be different from the “I’m lost and don’t know what to do” punishment. Of course, I’ve been using the word punishment incorrectly here intentionally as really this is about corrective behavior.</p>
<p>BTW, I am not a perfect parent by any means. It is far easier to be analytical on a forum than in person. I thought I’d chip in seeing your frustration with the situation. I’m sure after you step back and take another look at things, the cause and corrective actions will become clear.</p>
<p>Good Luck.</p>
<p>Get her a summer job. Even if she is under 16, she can get working papers fairly easily. We deal with some of the same issues with my son who is a sophomore. Having a job makes a huge difference because they are given responsibility by someone outside of mom and dad. I think lying ties in with low self esteem and a job is a sure fire way to change that.
Good luck. I really can relate.
zp</p>
<p>Thanks, your replies have been most helpful. </p>
<p>Zuzu - I wish I knew how she could get a job this summer, that was her plan but the two jobs we were able to track down both fell through.</p>
<p>And Brooklyn - you are right, there are underlying issues.</p>
<p>Goaliedad - I really value your opinion. The issue isn’t academics, she is pulling highest honors there, but the advice is still sound. At this age I just find it very hard to come up with an apporpriate discipline. But I will think about what all of you offered.</p>
<p>I just read this thread and then went back to photops comments about his/her daughter and her life at school. This child seems like an exemplary young lady that we all would be proud of, if she were our child. She is extremely smart, does lots of ecs, works her way for most of her necessaries. Based on her parent’s description of her life in BS, it seems to me its a toss up between brilliancy and disaster. In a very wealthy millieu she gets almost next to nothing allowance, very sparse clothing, and has to work when kids go on vacation. In addition, her every step is scrutinized and checked (regular computer check ups). Now, Im not saying any of that is bad, and a lot of what she is doing will help her succeed in life and develop a drive. But dont let go of the fact that she is in school day in day out with some of the wealthiest kids in the US. That has got to leave a mark of a sort on any child, no matter how wonderful/smart/inject any praise-worthy adjective here. I doubt that any adult that gets put into her situation would be able not to feel bitter or lie, etc, let alone a child of 16/17.</p>
<p>Outward Bound - or similar. Puts her away from technology, is an object lesson in honesty, is hard and sometimes scary, builds more socially attuned self-awareness.</p>