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Sometimes teenagers do bad things. Firstly, they’re as imperfect as everybody else is. Secondly, they tend to act out when they feel like they haven’t got enough freedom- which tends to be most of the time. However, there are going to be times when most teens do something that goes beyond mere rebellion against you, and can actually be dangerous or stupid enough to warrant a serious punishment. When that happens, a more serious punishment is in order.
Before you even consider it, you can’t torture your teen, no matter how tempting it might be after they’ve totaled the car or gotten high and cursed out a police officer. No matter how cathartic such a method of punishment might be, it just isn’t worth the jail time or the loss of a psychological edge. The idea is, your teen made a serious mistake, and you need to do something about it. Academicians have been speculating about progressive models of punishment for a long time, and sometimes parents just need to get creative.
The best way to punish your individual teen is to purposefully and completely deny them something they enjoy, but that they do not need. Denying them their computer entirely will harm their ability to do school work, and you won’t be able to entirely stop them from recreationally using it. You can’t dney your teen food, either. You basically have to exercise both a level of knowledge about something expendable your teen can function without, while you also exercise a level of creativity about what this might be. When your teen makes a horrible mistake, be creative and unmerciful.
