Why Time-Based Grounding Doesn’t Work?
By Heidi Eilers, PH.D., B.C.B.A-D
Sara is a 14 year old girl who just arrived home 20 minutes late from her friend’s house. The rest of the family is already at the dinner table. Her mother, Karen, is furious. This is the second time this week she has come home late. Karen decides the best way to handle the situation is to ground Sara for a week. Karen tells her daughter that she will not be able to go to her friend’s house after school, watch T.V., listen to her iPod, or use her computer for anything other than school work for an entire week.
For the next seven days, Sara comes home, goes straight to her room and comes out long enough to eat dinner and goes back to her room. Karen begins feeling upset because she feels like her relationship with her daughter is deteriorating. She starts to question if grounding Sara was the best decision.
Despite the fact that time-based grounding is one of the most popular disciplining procedures used in our culture, there are several reasons why parents should reconsider the use of time-based grounding as a discipline procedure:
- The focus is on what the child did wrong instead of focusing on what the child could do to improve her behavior. The primary focus of discipline should always be to teach your child how to behave well.
- The discipline is time-based instead of being based on the child’s current behavior, so even if your child is behaving well that day, she is still restricted from privileges. This results in missed opportunities to reward good behavior. This is likely to create resentment and cause friction in your relationship with your child.
- There isn’t any motivation for the child to behave better while she is grounded. If the child is grounded no matter how well she behaves then there isn’t any reason to improve her behavior. You have already removed her privileges, so from her perspective she has nothing left to lose and nothing to gain.
- It is difficult for parents to follow through with time-based grounding. If you have ever shared a home with a child that has lost her privileges, then you will know what I am talking about. The child is miserable which also makes the parents feel miserable. The parents are usually just as motivated as the child at this point to do whatever it takes to remove the restrictions. This leaves the parents in a vulnerable position and many times parents are easily convinced to shorten the grounding period.
- The grounding procedure usually also has other innocent victims. Siblings are usually unhappy because they can’t enjoy time with the child who is grounded. Parents’ lives are also restricted because they can’t spend time enjoying activities with their child or take the child out for activities. Again, this makes it very hard for parents to follow through with the grounding procedure because they are usually as motivated as the child to shorten the grounding period.
Using Chore-Based Grounding as an Alternative
Focusing on Good Behavior
Good behavior should be rewarded with access to privileges and acknowledgement and praise. Privileges are all the things in your child’s life that are not necessities. Food, shelter, clothing, bedding, and education are all examples of necessities. I would also include in the necessity category, activities that would promote education or moral development. For example, I would not consider attending youth group at church or school related activities a privilege. All other things should fall into the privilege category, which means, they should be earned. Children are not entitled to T.V., phones, computers, cars, etc. These items should be earned by participating in chores and by following the family rules. You do not need a fancy reward system to reward good behavior. It can be as simple as restricting access to privileges until homework & chores are completed. Provide acknowledgment and praise for completing homework and chores in addition to providing access to privileges.
Chore-Based Grounding
- Make a list of 10-20 small chores. The chores should be things that do not have to be completed on a daily basis. For example, avoid things like taking out the garbage, doing dishes, cleaning the floors, general dusting, etc. Chores that would work well are spring cleaning type items, such as organizing the linen closet, dusting the books, or cleaning the outside windows.
- Make a list of behaviors that will result in grounding and how many chores will be assigned for each behavior. For example, rolling eyes results in 1 chore, lying results in 3 chores
- Go over the lists with your child and explain that each time she engages in one of the behaviors you will assign her chores. She will be restricted from all privileges until the chores are completed.
- When your child engages in a behavior that earns chores, say to your child in a calm voice, “You did (behavior); you do not have access to your privileges until the chores are complete.” Walk away and do not engage in any further discussion about the matter.
- Provide praise and acknowledgment for chore completion. Let your child know how appreciative you are for her hard work and use this time to turn the table around to focus on your child’s positive behaviors.
- Do not try to coax your child into completing the chores. Wait it out. Let her decide when she is ready to complete them.
My parents used to ground me by making me do chores every time I misbehaved. I would have to clean the house and do the dishes for a week at a time. I hated doing dishes while my friends got to hang out, so I learned quick.
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