The Discipline Dilemma

Hey podcast family, welcome to Motherhood in Black and White. My name is Conji. I'm Tara and this week we are going to be sharing some stories about how we choose to punish our children. Oh yes we are. And I know it doesn't seem like an uplifting subject, but unfortunately it is a necessary one. Before we get into this topic of punishing adolescent kids and the story behind it because Tara, you know there's a story. I'd love it when there's a story. Right but before we go into that, let's back up a little bit and talk about this last week. Last last week I had the pleasure of seeing my favorite podcast co-host three different times. So we got together to record a podcast episode and then a couple of days later we had a girls night out and Tara invited me and we went and saw a local production of the Broadway hit musical Ain't Too Proud, the life story of the temptation. So Tara, first of all thank you for that. It was much needed and much appreciated. Tell me a little bit what do you think of the show? Oh I love the show. I enjoyed the music so much. I thought the cast was phenomenal and I learned a bunch of new stuff about the temptations and I didn't know. Like I knew the music but I didn't know some of the story. You did know the music. I did. And I was shocked because you know you're a Gen X white woman and I was like look look at her. You have a little Bob going on. I loved it. I knew all that music. Yes. I was saying like I knew almost every song that they played and like you I agree the cast was phenomenal. The talent was incredible. And the songs took me back to my youth because growing up that was the music of my mom's childhood and every single song that they played were songs that I heard over and over again as I was growing up. And when we were in the car leaving the theater we talked about kind of our kids when they're looking back and say what was the soundtrack of their youth. Yeah. And we paused a little bit. We did. I'm pausing right now. You know so for me when I have access to play the music of my choice in my car which is rare because my kid decides he wants to listen to whatever he wants to listen to. You know I'm playing a lot of of 90s hip hop and R&B. Yes. I'm playing a lot of Beyonce and Prince. And so hoping that some of those songs stick in his head and I felt this sense of pride and accomplishment the other day when poison by BBD Bell Bive DeVo came on and my kid knew all the words. Yes. I just felt that's the parenting win win win win win. All day all day. Yeah. And like I mentioned to you my son and we mentioned to the podcast family last week my son Roman is really into musical theater right now and he is interested in pursuing potentially a career in acting and so seeing the cast of Ain't Too Proud which was an all black cast playing the temptations and some of the Motown recording artists of the 60s and 70s. It just put a smile on my face just to see all of that talent and hoping that that was something that their families have supported and continue to support those theater professionals. Yeah. I agree with you. I was thinking about Roman when we were watching it is we just had that conversation that he was really getting into musical theater and that show is just I mean I know there's some sad moments because that story has some tragedy in it but it's just a feel good show like it was just a I just walked out of there like that was a great I just felt so happy and good about that show is so much fun. Yeah. So podcast family if Ain't Too Proud comes to your city I would and I know Tara also seconds this encourage you try to get some tickets and see that it's an incredible show it closed its Broadway run in January of this year so the touring company is playing all over the United States and can't that's right and I think we've figured out maybe a few of those were from the Broadway cast. Yeah. That's pretty cool. That doesn't always happen. Incredibly talented cast and then so we went from like a Broadway caliber cast and seeing the show Ain't Too Proud on a Friday evening and then that Saturday evening we saw a not Broadway cast when you and gauge your son came to see Roman in his musical theater production for a local community theater show of Disney's descendants. That's right. So what did you think of that performance? I loved it. It was awesome. I mean obviously you know those kids are getting into musical theater and it's a different type of production quality but it was super fun. We had a lot of fun. Yeah and that was his fourth community theater production and Disney's descendants as we know is based off of the children of the evil villains from the Disney's movies that we watched growing. Correct. So this was a show or movie that came out about seven or eight years ago it was a trilogy Disney's Descendants 1, 2 and 3 on the Disney Channel and so there were a lot of little kids in the theater. Yes. That knew all of the songs. They knew the plot. And it was good to see and witness. Yeah. And like I said it was good to kind of have you and engage your son experience that so thank you so much for showing up. Yeah absolutely. Gage really enjoyed it. It was so fun to see our boys talking after the fact and you know Gage I heard Gage telling Roman like you were really great man. I was really impressed and Roman was like oh thanks man it was so cute. I was I was obsessed with them. They were so adorable. And obsessed with the fact that both of our sons look like copy paste of us. They do. It's like we're all husbands even involved. No. That picture made me laugh when you said I was like yep they do. It looks like just many me standing next to each other. Yeah so podcast family if you have not seen our boys and you want to see a picture them just go ahead and check out our social media account. And we will put that up at black and white mom cast on Instagram. Make sure you're following us there if you aren't already. We're trying to make sure we get some more content out for you. And if you're not following us on your favorite listening platform make sure you do that because you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. Yeah so we had such a wonderful weekend of family and excursions and we did all these wonderful things. And the weekend ended. Roman I think was a little tired because they had a lot of the shows. They did eight shows in four days and he went back to school and kind of lost his mind. Oh no. Yeah so here is where we talk about finding the appropriate punishment for our kids. Does the punishment fit the crime? And how do you decide and determine what the punishment should be? So when Roman went back to school this week for the first time ever last week I got a phone call from a teacher mentioning that he he was acting up in class. He's wait he's an eighth grade. He's an eighth grade. This is a time ever. Ever. Wow. I know. Okay. So we were on a roll. Yeah. But that roll came to a screeching halt just in the last like 96 hours. So last week his math teacher called me and she shared with me that he and another student started laughing in class and it was uncontrollable laughter and she asked him about seven or eight times to stop laughing and he couldn't and he didn't. So that evening he came home and he said you know mom I tried to stop laughing and I couldn't and I was discouraged and upset that this teacher called me and that he had disrupted the class. And I said to him I said Roman if you want to be a professional actor you need to learn how to control your emotions. That's right. Yeah. It's job laughing on cue. Right. If you can't stop laughing in a classroom I do not have confidence that a director can give you that cue. You know learn to act right. So that was it and this was during his technical week for the show so we didn't really worry about or didn't focus on punishing him for that. Yeah. However he forced my hand. So this week I'm sitting at home and I'm on my work computer and I actually get a personal email notification on my cell phone so I looked at my phone. The email subject line said cell phone violation. Wow. Yes. Violation. Violation. Okay. And then when we went on to read it it said your student Roman was in the library huddled in a corner on his phone and we confiscated the phone. And a parent has to come up to school during the school day hours to pick it up. Which is so inconvenient for me and my husband. And also really really really really we know the rules the rules are you cannot have your phone out at all during the school day except for during lunch period. So I get upset and then when I pick him up after school my son tries to justify the well I just pulled it out because the notification was going on and as soon as I pulled the phone out she walked over and caught it and I wasn't really using the phone and I said timeout but let's pause. I love the story. The story was great. Yes. And he said well even my friend Chris said your mom's not going to believe it but it's true and I said it doesn't matter. The rule is the rule. The rule is you do not have your phone out at all. And so the fact that you took it out you deserve to be punished for it. So let's think like what would the appropriate punishment be? From the parenting standpoint. I mean I guess the obvious is he loses his phone you know for a certain amount of time maybe a week. I mean that's like the first thing that comes to my mind. And then what else? I don't know if I'm creative enough to say what else. I'm like oh you can't use your phone responsibly no phone for a while. week. So I think that that leads us to a larger conversation, right? So we know that as our kids are different ages, there are different punishments that we have to kind of dull out, but I think that at our core, we need to figure out like what is the purpose of a punishment? Yeah, right. So when we think about when our kids were younger, some of the things we used to do was try to correct behavior that we didn't like. And some of it might have been tied out, some of it might have been taking things away that they liked, right? Yep. And then when they get older, obviously timeouts don't work as much anymore. My kids like, please send me to my room. Please, please send me some where I don't have to talk to you guys or do it. Yes, I salute. And so it's we take things maybe away from them that they like they want they use. So the cell phone usage, obviously Tara, I agree. That's one of them and that's the thing that should have should go. But here's the question. What do we do in this situation where your kid needs a cell phone to communicate with you? That is tricky. I thought about that too. That does make it hard. So in a lot of situations, we notice that, you know, if we have to communicate with our kids where we're picking them up after school or extra curricular activities, we want to keep them safe. So how do we navigate this fine line of this is what the punishment should be and set the parameters and also then kind of enforce it. That's the piece that was always hard. You know, when he was younger and we were kind of navigating this was, you don't want to come up with something that you then have to police. That's so tough. You're like, well, I don't want to have to check and see if he did the thing every day. Now I'm being punished. So I get that. But yeah, that's tricky. The the taking away the phone is tricky, especially now that they're older. Did you come up with something yet? We did. Okay. And we were thinking about like, what are some ways that we've chosen to punish our child in the past and things that we have done and things that we didn't do? And a lot of what we do as parents kind of like reflect on, well, what worked for me when I was a kid? Right. You know, and so thinking like, but it's also difficult because obviously he's his own person. Yes. The things his currency. The things that matters the most to him and things that matter to him didn't necessarily matter to me growing up. I will share with you that when he got in trouble last year for for something, probably talking back to me or trying to, you know, I say he was popping off them out. And then I said, well, what do you want your punishment to be? Do you want to lose your computer privileges for a week? Or do you want to lose yourself on privileges for a week? And this was during the height of the pandemic. And I think we were at home. So, so those were the two options. And he came to me and he said, I think I want a spanking. Wow. And he was serious. Yeah. So here's the truth about my kid. He's never been spanked. Yeah. Which anyone who knows me knows that was not my experience growing up. Right. Right. So he was like, I think I just want to see how it feels. And with a spanking, you have the punishment. And then it's over. Yeah. He's like everything. The other options you gave me, mom went on for a week. And I thought about it. And I said, well, dad and I have our own reasons why we don't believe in spanking or what's calling us one of weapons or beating babies. I was saying things. Yeah. And so that was just not the, that was something we agreed when we had our son that we that was not something we would ever do. We would not ever punish him with a whipping or a beating or a spanking. And that was not how I was raised. Right. So for me, I think my, my parent, her default and the first thing she did was be to, to beat me or to spank me. Right. And that was like her form of punishment. And I'm like, did that work in terms of correcting the behavior or did it just inflict like a fear base in me? Does that make sense when I'm honest? Yes. When you were talking, I kept thinking about fear. Like I, because I had a very similar experience, we were punished with meetings and, and being spanked and with objects. It was not, it was not pretty. And I think I hear people say, well, that worked. I, you know, acted right. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I did act right to avoid spankings. But when I was outside the purview of my parents, I didn't act right. I mean, it didn't correct my behavior. It just made me afraid of them. You know, and that's not what I want. I want him to learn the lesson and correct the behavior. Right. Right. So I'm curious, like, what is it that you have done in terms of correcting gauges behavior? And how was that changed as he has now gotten older now that he is in middle school? Kind of like, what did you do that worked when he was younger? And I kind of, what do you do now? Oh, God. That's a good question. When he was younger, we probably did very similar things. We did timeouts. We did loss of privileges. And when he was younger, that worked really well. Because that was like, you know, it was a really big deal. If you didn't get to watch TV, you were if it was limited. So that, that worked pretty well for him from a consequence standpoint until it didn't, you know, eventually he got older and that got harder and harder to do. I also, this is going to sound, whatever, that I also like to talk it out a little bit. You know, I try to, I remember when he was younger, especially in feelings we get really high about something. I would try to, you know, just have a short conversation with him about specifically what it was that was maybe not the best choice, why it wasn't the best choice. And that had have him kind of explain to me what he thought about that and what he thought a better choice might be. And listen, I don't, some days I don't know if that worked, but there are days now that he's older that he's pretty articulate about his feelings, which is nice. And he's pretty quick to say, oh, I know why that's not a good idea because it would feel like this. So I did, I did a little bit of that too. Now that he's older, it's a little bit more big picture. We do extra chores. We still lose privileges because, you know, I think we talked about this, Gages and have a smartphone as a flip phone. So I can take away electronics and he can still have a phone that does nothing for him, but they call. So that helps. So we do lots of privileges. And, you know, we do extra chores quite a bit. We, you know, make him do work around the house and kind of earn that privilege back. And then in situations where other people are involved, I, I make him apologize and set things right. I make him apologize and set it right. He has to do that part of it. I think that's a really important part. And so when there's been something with a teacher where he didn't hold up his end of the bargain, then he has to go back to them and find out how he can make that right. And that's a muscle that I think that any kid, any age, yeah, should start to develop its understanding that if another person is involved, you need to apologize for the behavior. And get them to understand like why? And as you mentioned, one of the things that you've done is to have these like conversations and talk it out. I'll share with you that in my son's world, that is the worst punishment ever is to listen to me talk or give an explanation. He'll be like, please take my phone mom. Take it all the way. Don't maybe talk about it. I get it. Don't talk anymore. Take my phone for a month. He will like voluntarily give up all of his things, possessions and privileges. But one thing I did make him do when he was talking in his math teacher's class, as he did go to see her before class the next day and apologized for being disrespectful and for interrupting her class and assured her that it wouldn't happen again, you know, because he's going to be practicing acting. He will act like he has common sense. Act like he can control his emotions. Girl, it was so funny. But I do like the, in addition to loss of privileges, one thing that we need to do better at, and this is the follow through is maybe assigning him extra chores. Because again, when I'm looking at like how I parent based on how I was raised, a lot of the things that we think about in punishment, it's things that were taken away. And I don't want to be that parent. Like I am in my late 40s now and I remember specifically one Halloween. I was supposed to be Cinderella and I had my Halloween costume and it was beautiful and I was dressed appropriately and I was looking forward to it and I did something. Of course, I did something that day. And my punishment was that I wasn't allowed to go trick or treating and I had to stand at the door and hand out candy to everybody in the neighborhood. I hate that. And so like even now, 40 years later, I remember how awful that was. And so I don't necessarily want that because I don't think there was effective. Like I, I, again, I don't remember what I did or didn't do. But I've seen it in myself, like the threat. I make those threats to Roman and I have to check myself. Like Roman is very obsessed with his hair. He has really, really long hair and his hairstyle is something. And sometimes we get into these arguments because if his hair isn't exactly as he wants it to be, he goes off and gets a little bit wild. And so I have threatened many times more times than I should. Like if you just don't act right or if you don't hurry up in the mornings and getting ready, I'm just going to shave your head off. Shave your hair off not your head. They'll put me in a different, that's a different kind of punishment. Different punishment. They grow on that level. So I've threatened that. And, and I see what it does to him, how it crushes him. And I've realized why I do that. It's because that's kind of like how I was raised. Yeah, makes sense. And no, 100%. I feel like we grew up in some extremes like that. And I think that just our parents did the best with the tools they had on board. I mean, that's just a function of the way they were raised. And they did what they did. But it was about, it did feel like when I was a kid, about not only punishing this infraction, but like, inflicting additional pain. I don't know, probably believing that I would remember that pain and tie it to the infraction and never do the infraction again. I don't think that's effective. I think I just remember the pain of the loss. And when Gage was little, and I was still learning how to, I mean, obviously, neither of us had the example that we're trying to live by. So when he was little and I was still trying to figure out what we were doing in that arena, I definitely made like larger threats like that. Like, I'm gonna take away every single one of your toys forever. I'm never gonna buy you anything. I mean, you know, for sure. Right. And I'm sure I'll slip on that again. But I try to, I try to, part of that is me regulating my emotions. Yeah. I'm asking him to regulate his emotions, but when I'm not doing it for myself, that's not the example I want to set. Yeah, yeah, that's so true, Tara. I mean, the point is that we have to work on ourselves first and understand, and I've realized before I can punish my child or correct any behavior, I have to check myself and make sure that I am in the state of kind of calmness and zen because if I operate from a sense of like the unconscious or I revert back to kind of what I've known, then it's gonna have a bad consequence. So I really have to kind of give myself that time and space. And there is like a luxury there, that time luxury of saying, okay, what is this gonna mean if I just take five minutes to disconnect and decompress and breathe before I go in at this kid, realizing that the actions and the words that I say are going to have such consequence on him. And as he is maturing, I'm looking and saying, who I am as a parent is going to be, who he becomes as a parent. - That's so true. That's so true. - Yeah. - I feel like one of the benefits that we've talked about before with me being a recovery is having had like sponsor-sponsi relationships where you have somebody that you talk to that kind of walks you through, maybe you made a bad choice and had a corrected and make amends and that kind of thing. And I think what I finally got to with Gage is recognizing that in those moments, I have to not be his mom. I have to sort of be a separate, okay, if I was talking to a sponsor or if I was talking to a friend, how would I coach them through this choice? And then, as his parent recognized that, I do have the ability to sort of enforce those consequences when necessary, but when I'm in the moment, I have to kind of step out of it and be like, okay, I'm not like, okay, if I can take my feelings out of this for just one second, how would I, or how would I do it for me? Like if I had made this choice, how would I correct it? And the kind of coach that way is hard though. - And I agree with what you said. And understanding that when we think about what it is that we're trying to correct and why we're punishing this kids, it is so important to kind of figure out the why before we figure out the what. - Oh, for sure. - And how? And again, there is no one right answer. There is no one size fits all approach when we come to choosing a punishment for our kids and correcting their behavior. It's understanding that A, it needs to be age appropriate and B, it needs to be appropriate for whatever the infraction is, right? The punishment has to fit the crime. - Correct. - And it needs to be appropriate for your kid. Like you need to know what their currency is because again, I can threaten to take away, you know, a TV for my son, but he don't watch TV. - Right, so that would, he'd be like, okay. - Okay, cool, let's do that. (laughing) So it's knowing and understanding, but one thing that I wouldn't take away from him is his ability to go to music lessons. - Right. - Or things that he really enjoys. And there was a time when that would have been my default, that would have been my go to. Like I'm gonna take away something that you enjoy, but realizing what that would mean if you do that. - Yes, like what are they really missing out on? What is that really teaching them? And I think, you know, the last thing I always say too, just around this topic that I always try to think through is I think the other result of the parenting we grew up with is it sort of enforces inherent belief that, not just that I made bad choices, but that I was bad, and that I should know better all the time. I should always know the right thing to do. And one of the things that I've done with Gage, and Jason's pretty good about it too, is you know, Gage will have, he's had moments in the past where he's done something and he got really upset with himself, and he was really, it was going sideways that way. And having to stop and go, "Hey, for the record buddy, most kids do this." Like most people struggle to learn these lessons. It's right on time. We're just here to help you and kind of recognize it in the moment and help you get better at, you know, before you make the choice, seeing what's going on. And so we've tried to also instill that, like in those conversations, like, you're not a bad person, you're just a kid that's learning and we all learn sometimes a hard way, you know, and that's what's happening. - Yeah, and as we extend graced our kids, we gotta make sure we extend graced ourselves as well. - Yes, ma'am. - And we all make sad choices. You know, I'm thinking about what I have for dinner last night. (laughing) - It's just that I don't have a, I don't have a parent, my house to kind of correct that, but who's correcting my behavior and it's a question. (laughing) - Oh, believe me, you're on your phone with somebody. Mark Zuckerberg, somebody is always watching and correcting everything. - For sure. - And so to kind of wrap up what we've landed on, and again, I was struggling with how to kind of punish Roman for having his phone out during school and breaking a school policy. The first thing that we decided to do, of course, he had to apologize to the teacher, and the second thing is because he does need a phone to communicate with us after school hours, it was the, it was the, hey, you know what, I trust you to make sure that you're gonna onto this policy, but you will turn your phone off during the school day and it will not be turned on until the end of the school here it is. - Yeah. - Day, and then this is it. I'm giving you this opportunity to show us that you've learned and that you are going to do better, but here's the rub, buddy, if you get caught again, then I will take your phone and you will get just a flip phone, you know? - Yeah. - And so that's it and the only reason you have a phone now is to communicate with your father and me. - Right, right. - I think that's great. - Extra chores would be great and I'm gonna think of some, I just don't, I don't know what would kind of work right now because our house is in a state of a flux. - You can't do the dishes. - We don't have a kitchen. - That's a story for another episode podcast family. - Yeah, we're starting a whole new story at the end of this one, but yeah, it's probably not great timing for that, but I can, I'll tell you, the stuff that Gage does offline, we can, I can take you through some of this, there's a few things he could do in the backyard. - Ooh, there's backyard chores. - There's backyard chores, I love that. And there's probably like clean my car chores as well. - 100%. - And we just talk about how filthy the car gets. We need to have an episode about how moms can keep their cars since we live in them, since we're constantly just taking our kids to and from all the different places. How you keep your car clean? I would love some tips there. Anyone has tips on that, please let us know. - Well, yes, please let us know. And then maybe we'll do an episode in, I'll give you my tips. I do a pretty good job in my car. You always have to just make sure-- - I'm a satin. - Teachers pet, Taylor. - I'm a satin. - Was that your nickname, Garuna? - No, yes it was. (laughs) I will say just because I haven't always been good at it, I've gotten better at it in the last couple of years, so I'm kind of proud of it. - So I would love to get some tips from you because that's kind of what this is all about, is learning from each other, learning from one another, where there are areas where one of us does something better, which clearly is always you, Taylor. - No. - Just kind of teach those of us that still need a little bit of help. And if you need a little bit of help, podcast family, you know that you could always reach out to Taylor because she knows what she's doing. And with that being said, we are going to wrap up this week's episode. We thank you as always for tuning in and listening and hopefully from this podcast episode, you gathered exactly what you needed from this week. With that being said, we will be back next week, same time, same place, guard your health, mental, physical and spiritual, take really good care podcast fam. Okay, is this better? - Yeah. - I'm looking at the levels right there. Okay, yeah, am I good? Check, check. Okay, great. - You're fine, Territ, that's nice. - New York space. (laughing) - Thank you. - Thank you. - So salty. - You always have to be the teacher's pet. - How am I doing? - How am I doing? - Well, I had stepped back. I wanted to be sure 'cause he has corrected me in the past. - He had nothing to do with you. - Or recently. - Like, how am I smelling your voice? I've had to fix your voice. I want to make sure he doesn't fix my voice. - Okay. What was that? I just breathed out my drink. So sorry. Oh, do it on the back. I thought that was the dog. I thought it was the dog with barking. He doesn't bark. That's weird. Okay. So, you know, I'm surprised you would come. Oh, my God. It makes me cranky. Let's go. I love it when I show up and we just start. Here we go. Here we go. Gally down in four, three, two.