We take a strong stance on grounding teenagers.
On behalf of all our teens in our programs – parents- please stop grounding them! You don’t have to do it. Discipline can still work great without it.
Grounding simply doesn’t make sense to teens. They don’t get it. It feels like senseless torture and often ends up deteriorating the relationship you have with them without creating the desired results.
From a teenager’s perspective, grounding is extremely confusing. They don’t see grounding modeled anywhere else in life. Adults don’t ground each other. If you argue with your spouse, you can’t ground your spouse. Why is that? Your spouse would never agree to be grounded. They would push back against that. In fact, asking your spouse to submit would be seen as extremely patronizing and inappropriate.
Parents who use grounding effectively often already have a great relationship with their teens. In those relationships, the teen will likely do anything for the parent, so they put up with the grounding. It doesn’t work for parents who are trying to control or overpower their teens.
Try to save grounding as a once per child per lifetime thing. Soon, they realize they can not listen to you, and there’s nothing you can do about it – and grounding sets them up for more sneaking out and even greater pushback. Save grounding for the worst thing they can do – and use it sparingly.