HOME GROUNDING
Introduction
Home grounding is a common discipline reinforcement technique that is used by parents to restrain their teenage children from getting involved in any leisure time activities in order to correct their behaviors or serve as punishment. My sibling broke the grounding rules to spend some time with friends and my parents didn’t know about this because by the time they were back home he was already back home too and continued playing by the grounding rules. My problem is that am now in a position where i want to tell my parents the truth because I know my sibling receiving the punishment is supposed to help him better his behavior and not continue breaking more rules but still I want to play blind and keep silent in order to keep him save and not lose his trust or get him to hate me.
Importance
Home grounding is a better punishment for the pre-adults and teenagers because all they have to worry about is getting their phone taken away from them, not watching television, going to bed early or not having the privilege to spend time with friends socially. Considering this it’s easy for them to go through it other than the physical punishment where one gets hurt physically and it has so serve has a reminder over time. As a concerned sibling I know this is all meant for the betterment and shaping of his behavior and him going through it as expected was going to help him not repeat the same negative behavior again for the fear of harsh consequences but him cheating and getting away with it will make him not be afraid to repeat the same act because he knew he had safe way out.
Identifying the solution
My sibling started repeating the same mistakes he was getting grounded for, my parents were suspicious why he wasn’t getting worried of being grounded anymore and I started feeling guilt for being part of his lies. He would sneak out every time he was on the grounding session, go have fun like he is on his normal social freedom days. It bothered me and I grew concerned especially when he started bragging about being able to escape his punishment unnoticed and I decided it was time for me to tell my parents the truth even if it meant getting attacked by him or us not being close again.
Steps for identifying the solution
Firstly I asked several friends at school what they would do if they were in my position. Some thought snitching on siblings was a very bad move because at some point you may land at their position and you may need some covering up too. The largest number of my informants said that if the snitching intention is to benefit them it should be considered.
I then asked my parents with by any chance one of us has been cheating and they came out clean and told the truth what they would do them, my parents said if they finally confess they can be forgive and that was more than fair, right?
Finally I approached my siblings told him to talk to my parents, tell them the truth about what he has been doing and talk them to adopting a different kind of punishment that will serve effectively like social media blackout experience, exclusion from family fun days among other inevitable ones.