Punishment for my son. I need ideas!

Don't be a helicopter parent. There are natural consquences for him not doing his homework. He'll experience them and make changes. It's hard to sit back and let him do that but in the long run, both of your lives will be much better and less stressful.

When they were little, I would give my kids "the blackout" ... Nothing electronic (except a lightbulb) for x amount of time. Small things would get a 2 hour blackout. Big .. maybe even a 48 hour blackout.

Now that they're in high school, they dont get the WiFi password of the day until homework is done.

My parents had a grade/freedom chart. Down the left side it had all the things I did: watch tv, have tv in room, be out past dark, have car, drive car, play sports, go to friends etc etc etc. Across the top was GPA (from 0.0 – 4.0). Depending on what the freedom was, I had to maintain a certain GPA. I might only have to have a 3.0 to own my car, but I would have to have a 3.7 to actually drive the thing. Every quarter, we’d take my report card, figure the GPA and lay a ruler down the chart to see what I could and couldn’t do, what I was going to get or get taken away, how cool my life was going to be or how bad it was going to suck. I hated that effing chart but looking back I think it was an excellent approach. It gave a clear explanation of consequences vs. expectations. It was way better than having something happen, my parents get pissed and randomly select a punishment. I knew that if I didn’t keep my grades at a certain level, exactly what I was going to lose. It sounds like you’re taking his stuff away when he does badly. This only allows him to react to the sudden change and possible just get pissed at you instead of accept he did this.

I think sounds very interesting...but not sure it would work on all kids. I was a rebel-child and that sort of chart seems it would work for a parent-pleaser. Unless my parents had started it an earlier age....I think I started going down hill around 14.......my grades sucked well before that!

The key to this is making it about what the KID wants. It's their choice what level of reward/consequence they get each report card. The parent in this situation shouldn't be nagging or even closely monitoring, not even a guilt trip if the grades come back poor. The kid made the choice, the parent just follows the plan that has already been agreed upon.

Don't be a helicopter parent. There are natural consquences for him not doing his homework. He'll experience them and make changes. It's hard to sit back and let him do that but in the long run, both of your lives will be much better and less stressful.

The all-knowing, all-powerful Max

(pay no attention the man behind the curtain)

I agree, helicopter parents make life difficult for their children. Let him fail. What happens to you when you don't do something you are supposed to do.....there is a consequence. Let him learn about consequences. There is no better teacher than failure.

Exactly. Unless you want to follow him around his whole life "making" him be responsible. If he fails a grade, he repeats. Unfortunately that is where a parent freaks out and starts trying to fix everything instead of letting the kid experience consequences. 7th grade is old enough to learn to take responsibility for their own choices and actions.

Well I guess somebody has to flip burgers and clean toilets.

Yes. And it will be someone who has learned responsibility and showing up on time, and getting the job done. I see no need to insult someone who flips burgers or cleans toilets.

I'm not exactly sure how indicating that someone who fails the 7th grade is likely to be flipping burgers and cleaning toilets for a living is an insult, but if you see something derogatory in that declaration, then perhaps you should encourage your kids to take their education seriously.

I would totally make him wear bum outfits to school, until he starts doing his homework.

Horrible idea.

Ok, FIRST thing that needs to happen is this ^. I know I bombed the h#ll out of 7th and 8th grade because I hated drawing attention to myself as the smartest person in the class. I would intentionally fail a test just so I could show other students my test paper when they made the "well of course SHE got a 100" comments.

Don't be a helicopter parent. There are natural consquences for him not doing his homework. He'll experience them and make changes. It's hard to sit back and let him do that but in the long run, both of your lives will be much better and less stressful.

The all-knowing, all-powerful Max

(pay no attention the man behind the curtain)

I agree, helicopter parents make life difficult for their children. Let him fail. What happens to you when you don't do something you are supposed to do.....there is a consequence. Let him learn about consequences. There is no better teacher than failure.

Exactly. Unless you want to follow him around his whole life "making" him be responsible. If he fails a grade, he repeats. Unfortunately that is where a parent freaks out and starts trying to fix everything instead of letting the kid experience consequences. 7th grade is old enough to learn to take responsibility for their own choices and actions.

Well I guess somebody has to flip burgers and clean toilets.

Yes. And it will be someone who has learned responsibility and showing up on time, and getting the job done. I see no need to insult someone who flips burgers or cleans toilets.

I'm not exactly sure how indicating that someone who fails the 7th grade is likely to be flipping burgers and cleaning toilets for a living is an insult, but if you see something derogatory in that declaration, then perhaps you should encourage your kids to take their education seriously.

I think that the insult comes from assuming that the kid will be skilled enough to flip burgers/clean toilets. Based on the level of responsibility being shown, the kid would lose that burger flipping job within the week. It's actually pretty hard to get a good janitorial job if you haven't graduated high school. Trust me, I've tried.