What's the most unconventional punishment you've ever given your kids or were given as a child?

My older decided she wanted to join the band in seventh grade.  Our junior high and senior high has one band, as we are a small incorporated city that is suburb of a large city.  (That is my hometown, but I haven't lived there for some years)  So, we bought an alto sax and she joined the band.  She did very well and loved.  It didn't take long for me to realize there was going to be a problem.  I didn't know that "band" becomes your social group.  A seventh grader has no business being in a social group with 12th graders.  There were lots of band parties.  I always embarrassed her by checking with parents where the party was to be.  I even showed up during one of them with a lame reason just so my daughter would always know that that was a possibility.  When the second grades came out of the second semester, she had a C in something.  She had only made two Bs in her life.  I explained that I understood that her social life was so active that her attention to school was suffering.  I told her that if there was another C on the last grade period that band would be a thing of the past.  Well, she did make another C and I took her to the school office the next day to change her eighth grade schedule removing band.  She told me later that it was almost a relief.  She couldn't explain why she did not quit herself.  She never made another C, including college and grad school. 

Parents can say no to kids.  Letting kids run the house, the school, or anything else is a mistake.  They are growing up and until they get there, they need us to set boundaries and enforce them.  This is from where they get their sense of security.

I know this may not be unconventional but I never had to punish my kids.  They were almost like stepford kids.  That's the truth. This post was edited by Thriftymaid at October 11, 2019 2:45 PM MDT

Most unconventional was only unconventional because of her age...she was already a teen. And she had some friends over and being a smart but in front of them. So I told her a child I would treat her like one and sent her to the corner. She said what? And I told her again. Sje went and I left her there for a couple of minutes. And that straightened her right up. 

To this day she will bring it up...I just can not believe you sent me to the corner at that age in front of my friends. That was so embarrassing.  Lol She never dod it again with friends around. 

Put most of the time the traditional stuff worked...take cell phone and stay home. 
With my boys it is take game controllers and kill the WIFI. 

Taking bedroom doors off hinges for a week or two is very effective for pre- and teen girls.  I didn't do this but family member did and my neighbor did too. This post was edited by Thriftymaid at October 11, 2019 7:04 AM MDT

When my youngest son was in his mid teens he started doing B&Es with his buddies. When I finally found out about it I sentenced him to watching Court procedures with me every Wednesday for the next 2 months. Wednesdays were the days they tried youth and I figured if he watched his friends get sentenced  it would scare him. But at first it looked like it was going to back fire because they were all getting slaps on the wrists but there was the odd one that showed him crime doesn't always pay. I think it helped get him on the right path but there were other factors like new friends and interests. Cheers!       

[Either here on AnswerMug or previously on the now-defunct AnswerBag, I have recounted this before.]

  I think mine were about 8 and 9 years old when this happened. They each had their own bedrooms, and from the time they could understand human language, the rules of the house were that no one, NO ONE AT ALL enters any closed door without first knocking and secondly getting permission to enter. My wife and I, even being adults and even being those who made the rules, also respected that rule, we saw it as a way to show the children the best example. 

  There began to be problems of those two violating this particular rule by barging into each other’s rooms at will, arguing and fighting about it, then the “victim“ would run to me or Ma and cry foul. The perpetrator would always have an excuse, “I knocked first,” “The door wasn’t closed all the way,” “I didn’t think you’d mind,” “You did it to me last week,” “That’s because you did it to me first,” “You were asleep, so I had to go in without knocking,” “I was only in there for a minute,” “I asked Mama first and she said it was okay,” “You made me angry” “You had some of my stuff in your room.”

  I got fed up. One Saturday morning when the squabbling started anew, I went to the garage, got my toolbox, and proceeded to unscrew the hinges from the defendant sibling‘s door. The plaintiff sibling was in hog’s heaven, snickering and taunting and pointing. As I carried off the door to store it in the garage, the bickering escalated. I ignored it, I ignored both of them. Much to plaintiff sibling’s surprise, I then began removing the second door from its frame. The house grew silent except for the sounds of my labor. I finally had peace and quiet. 

  I sat them down and gave them the $10 speech about respecting rules, respecting each other, the consequences that come when one forgets or disregards those points. I told them that if they didn’t think those doors were important, we‘d see how long it took before a lack of doors changed their minds. 

  It didn’t take very long. Losing all of their privacy was a great teacher. Soon, they were practically tiptoeing around each other. They were so sweet to each other that I thought my wife and I would contract sugar diabetes by osmosis. The story has an overall positive ending in that the plan worked; when I put the doors back on experimentally, they outgrew the problem. There was, of course, one drawback. Either I put the wrong door on the wrong frame, or some other dad mishap, but from then on, neither door ever closed completely nor closed  properly. I tried various combinations of the hinges, the screws, the direction of hanging the doors, everything. Even to this day, kids all grown up and out on their own, Ma and Pa in an empty nest, those two darned doors are still clunkers. 
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