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Being Grounded Ain't All That Bad
My son Blake, at least in his early days, didn’t really understand the concepts of discipline and punishment. He often heard mom and dad yelling at his older sisters when they did something bad that they were “grounded”!
He never really got it, until one day. He had taken a pen and written circles (a skill he had just recently acquired and was quite proud of) across our new ivory leather furniture. As mom approached, she became instantly enraged. She grabbed him and screamed “that’s it, you’re grounded all day!”.
No biggy he must have thought. Until he wanted to go outside and play with his friends. Mom would have nothing of it. She sat him down in the chair in front of the window, where he peered out at his friends having a great time on a hot summer afternoon, playing with sprinklers and water pistols. He was miserable. “Now you understand what being grounded means” mom explained.
He woke up the next day delighted in the fact that his punishment was over. But, this was the day when he was to start pre-school. He had never really been away from both mom and dad. He seemed to always be in the company of one parent or the other. He was excited to go to school, after all, his sister’s did this and he wanted to enjoy the privileges of his older siblings.
Of course, the one thing he hadn’t counted on, was having to stay at the preschool by himself. When he realized mom and dad were leaving him, he panicked. The look of absolute horror was upon his face as he screamed and clung to mom. She couldn’t bear to leave him somewhere that he so fearful of. I got angry and took him away from mom (who could not bear to see her son in such grief…what a wimp!). I told her to leave and I would handle this. I took him over to the teacher and pulled his arms off me(which were clamped to me as if he had tiny vice-grips for fingers!). He screamed “Daddy, Daddy, don’t leave me!” All of a sudden, I couldn’t leave him there with those terrible teachers and little munchkin strangers! The teacher assured me he would be fine. She took my son from me and gave me a look like “what a wimp!”. So the two of us left in anguish soon to return a couple hours later to pick him up.
He was still quite distraught. You could tell he had been crying most of the time we were gone. But using psychology on the little guy, we quizzed him about all of his activities. He seemed to feel better once he thought about the fun he had with his new friends.
Anyway, it got to be about bed time that night, and being the child-psychologists we are, we began his preparation for the next day, when he would once again return to that dreaded pre-school. We explained how much fun he would have and all the new friends he would make.
The look of panic returned to his face, realizing he would once again be left with strangers he pleaded “Can I be grounded tomorrow?!”
A Day In The Life Of An Average American Family (Page 9)
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