Raising and Disciplining teens

Brother Bear being photo bombed by Lizard.

I am the proud mom of not one but 2 teenagers. Lizard is on her way to 16 and Brother Bear is on his way to 15. They are really good kids. Lizard is pretty mature for her age and Jerry is very sweet for his age. We homeschool and I think that helps but they do get influences I wish they didn't. These influences and others will come at them again and again in life so while they do worry me I know it is for the best that they are confronted with them while still under my roof. Things like teen pregnancy and romance, Lizard has friends who had done things like snuck out to meet a boy and then ended up pregnant and Brother Bear has had a group of friends that wanted to go into an abandoned home and hang out. They both have made good choices when confronted by such things so far. That being said I am no fool and they are no angles. They frequently break our rules and need a little correction. We believe in discipline not  punishment when an infraction is made. Look at it like this you don't say look at that well punished Soldier no they are well disciplined. Do you say that about someone who comes out of a prison where they are punished for their crime. Also look in the Bible it encourages parents to discipline their children. Now as your children age this becomes some what of an interesting event. You see you can put a small one in time out or even give them a small spanking but as they age these things either begin to not work or become inappropriate. We have learned this does not have to leave you with out an arsenal to get your point across.

Here are just a few of the things we implement in our home.

1. Writing Bible scripture that is relevant to the infraction.
   Now I know not everyone is a Christian but we are and we stand firm in our beliefs and it is our intent to do our best to pass them along to our children and this is one way for us to do that
2. Explanation Writing from a paragraph to pages long
       We have them sit down and write out what they did wrong, why it was wrong, things they should do differently and why 
3. Added Chores
    Now each of our kids have things they have to do everyday and some that can be spaced out through out the week, but at times they earn extra chores to be done for varying amounts of time. Chores such as cleaning the dog poop out of the yard for a week or clean the bathroom floor with a rag and a toothbrush ( not theirs or ours of course)one afternoon. Nothing to beyond their abilities or dangerous. Just "bad" enough to get the point across. 
4. Privileges Taken away
     Our kids understand that things like Ipods, Mpg3 players,Cell phone usage, TV time, Computer time, Game systems are all things that are earned and thus can be taken away if they choose to do things they shouldn't or to not do things they should. We typically take them away 1 at a time until they earn it back  unless there is no change then they are all taken away 
These are the ones we use the most often. Our kids usually respond to these things rather quickly but there is always things like this if things get our hand and you get fed up 
 




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