Then why are you having the party in the first place?

[Bright_Star]

So if the kid was really that bad then a candle on top of a cupcake would have done just fine...lol.

[jerkface11]

You really should have asked what he did. Now we'll never know.

[Subspace_Relay]

Well, when I was 13 (just 5 years ago), my peers began experimenting with things like pot and sex acts. Perhaps that would be worth 8 months.

[Megg]

When I was 13, I got caught shoplifting. Yeah, it was dumb, but I was 13. We actually got arrested (myself and my cousin) and taken to juvie. My mom got off work late, and I had to sit there for a couple hours waiting for her, thinking of what my punishment would be. I knew I was in it deep. When my mom got there, I took one look at her and told the officer she was not my mom and I had no idea who she was. The cop, of course, laughed at me, he knew I was full of it, as my mom had already showed her driver's license. I expected to get the tar whaled out of me, but nope. I got grounded.

Now, my mom knows how to ground someone. She took my TV, radio, and all my books. I was grounded from the first day of spring break (mid March) until the last day of summer vacation (late August). The first month, she kept all my stuff and I was confined to my room. After that, she started giving some stuff back (my books thank goodness) but I seriously did not leave my house that whole time, except to go to school. I never got caught shoplifting again, I can tell you that!

My birthday was in May, and although I had no friends over, we did have a party for family with cake and presents and stuff. My mom was strict, but a birthday is a birthday.

[powerboy]

Nope. Of course, I never left the house anyway, so grounding me wouldn't've been punishment.

That's the way my middle and highschool years were.

Same here. I had friends, but never really hung out after school. Well until the last year of high school.

[daleduke17]

Nope. Of course, I never left the house anyway, so grounding me wouldn't've been punishment.

"You're grounded....go to the mall and socialize."

That just does not have a good ring to it.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I never got caught shoplifting again, I can tell you that!

So, does that mean that you never shoplifted again, or that you just got better at it

M

[Lingering Grin]

My parents tried to punish me, but it was kinda pointless... mostly because I didn't care after about the age of 16.


Grounding me didn't work, because I was home anyway, and when I did want to go out... there wasn't much they could do to stop me.

Take away my stuff? Pfft, go for it, the only thing they could have taken and have me actually care about was my computer... and my dad tried that once... let's just say, it didn't go over well

Take my car? Didn't have one until I moved out.

Not give me money? Fine, I had my own money


Short of having me arrested, they really COULDN'T punish me... and they had no valid reason to have me arrested. Sure you could argue that I was a run-away when I left the house one time after my mom tried to ground me, but I came back the next day, and she knew I hadn't actually ran-away... I just went to a KMFDM concert lol


Then again, I never did anything THAT bad to get in trouble for. Usually it was disagreements about my grades... I wanted to drop out of highschool and get my GED, and they didn't want me to do that.... so I just stopped doing my school-work.

One thing I REALLY did that I could agree with them punishing me for was when I got detention at school. However, my mom took my side in that, because she agreed the teacher was being a douchebag lol.

Other than that, I never stole anything, never (overtly) lied to them (or got caught when I told the little lies ), and I never broke anything expensive...

[Emrld]

My 15th birthday . . .was right at mid term finals. I had a teacher that didn't like me . . .and his style of teaching and my learning didn't match.
It was history, which can be hard if memorization is not your strong suite. I would go in for tutoring and he would ask "What are you not understanding" my reply "I am not sure, I am coming to class and paying attention, taking notes, I do the homework, but when I take your tests I somehow mess everything up. I need your help." His reply - "I am not going to tell you what will be on my tests. You need to leave my tutoring and not come back till you know what you need help with."
I informed my Parents of this, I informed the school counselor's. I didn't pass. Teacher made sure to tell my Mom right away. I was grounded and didn't get to have a birthday party. Not even with my family. No gifts given to me, only the cards from older relatives that didn't know what was going on.
My Sister felt bad so she had a party with her friends and they all brought my Birthday cards. It was nice of her to try she thought it was crap that I was grounded.
By the end of the school year I was just barely passing his class. That was because I did every single extra credit project I could. The rest of my grades suffered because I didn't have time for other subjects. My parents realized I really was being honest and in over my head. The teacher was transfered to another school in the district, and after another year, let go from the district.
Apparently, I wasn't the only student saying they were trying and went for help and he wouldn't give it.

[Chromatix]

Ah, good teachers and bad teachers. They really can make or break your career.

I didn't get punished for this, but in my English GCSE I got an overall C, and a "Speaking & Listening" grade of F. For those following this with a calculator, yes that does mean my reading & writing must have been something like A or even A* standard to balance out. Needless to say, I knew where the F had come from - the unsympathetic teacher who didn't take into account that I was introverted and the rest of the (very small) class was extroverted and somewhat nasty, and therefore gave me almost no marks for "in-class participation". But it was too late to correct it.

Some years later, a potential employer's trained-monkey department rejected my application because I didn't have a B grade in that subject.

On the flip side, for Maths I had an excellent teacher who got me through the A-level at age 15!

[crazylegs]

"You're grounded....go to the mall and socialize."

That just does not have a good ring to it.

Perhaps not, but it would have been hell on earth for me.

[Mamadrae]

"You're grounded....go to the mall and socialize."

That just does not have a good ring to it.

Doesn't work when said homebody child will simply hunt down a book or music store and spend the entire time reading or listening to tunes.

I always mentally giggled when my parents grounded me for everything under the sun. I certainly wasn't interested in hanging out with most of the idiots I knew in middle school (I LOATHED the entire school and they all hated me to) and in high school I just had friends come over while they were gone.

[LadyAndreca]

My sister was once grounded 'until she apologized' for getting a second piercing after being forbidden to do so. (They had a 'no body-altering until you get your own place' rule, but had let us get a regular set of piercings around 8th grade for both having stellar grades that year.) Since she didn't feel the least bit sorry about doing so, she refused to apologize, and was therefore technically grounded for about a year and a half.

[JLRodgers]

That was the strangest thing.... I can't even imagine something so bad that you'd be gounded for that long -- the closest thing I could think of would also involve being in a jail for minors so "grounding" would be overkill and/or pointless.

Back when I was younger, I knew how to be a tad bit minipulative in a sense.... if parents wanted to punish me for something, they'd ask me what it should be -- I'd intentionally go about 2x worse than they would've, then they'd do something like 1/2 as bad as they would've lol. And I managed to "accidently" pick things that I secretely didn't care about, so my "punishment" was moot.

I've always had a evil little streak.

[Amina516]

So, does that mean that you never shoplifted again, or that you just got better at it

M

I was thinking the exact same thing...LOL