Parental Intervention 2013 Style

I came across a story yesterday about a father who forced his teenage daughter to wear a shirt to school for an entire week with his face boldly printed on the front after she ignored curfew. Adding insult to injury, she was required to wash the offending (awesome) garment at the local laundromat daily. The reaction to dad's form of punishment was mixed, but as a parent who has found traditional methods of behavior modifications ineffective, I admired his out-of-the box thinking.

I'm sure this revelation will come as a shock, but my mother was forced to correct my errant behavior quite a bit. When I was younger, her method involved using a switch we  picked ourselves from bushes bordering the edge of our yard. In addition to the anticipation of the whipping, we were instructed to make it 'sing like Zorro'. If we brought back a twig, she would break it in half, walk out to the edge of the garden and pick one out herself. Under this scenario, one could look forward to weeks worth of wearing pants which was particularly dreadful if rules were broken during the summer months. There were numerous occasions I attempted to convince my best friend, Shea that NO, I DID NOT get a whipping. The red, angry stripes marking my legs were the result of stumbling into a nasty thatch of briars. I did not realize how ineffective I was at lying until she made a joke last month about the frequency of times 'Gail jacked those legs UP'.

During my teenage years, my mother attempted to enforce restriction when I strayed outside of the lines (one such incident resulting from egging an individual's home at 3:00 am which I still insist was deserved). This form of punishment proved less effective than using tree branches because I was usually back to normal operating hours within a day. Simply put, I wore her down until she was a candidate for Prozac and she pretended to believe my promises that I'd never do what ever I'd done.

With no electronic gadgets and zero threat of public humiliation on social media, parents back in the day worked with a limited arsenal. Today, when I bring the heat down on my children, I usually require an Advil after rattling off 'no Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, computer, iPhone, iPod, or Nintendo DSi!' to prevent inflammation of the jaw.

I"ll admit I've occasionally gone Old Testament on my boys. I've even pulled an ear. I've threatened to 'come up on you like a virus.'

My efforts to help my children develop into productive citizens of society by using corrective measures have proven futile. They continue to fight over game time, hitting each other is one of their favorite past times, and refusing to show kindness without some sort of bribery on the table is the norm ('If you clean my room for ten years, you can have the last Capri Sun.')

With all the advancements and changes over the years it's amazing how the phrase, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same,' is as apt today as the day my mother was punished when she gave her baby brother an 'organic' present wrapped in a brown paper bag for Christmas.