A New Kind of Punishment

I have been butting heads with my strong-willed daughter for a number of years.  I blame my mother, really.  She was the one to curse me with "I hope someday you have a daughter and she JUST LIKE YOU!"

And I did.  And she is.  Just like her stubborn, strong-willed Mom.

I have tried timeout, grounding, loosing privileges, paying fines, and even assigned extra chores for misbehavior.  Nothing has gotten through to my little hard-headed girl.  

Then today, I caught her doing something that she knows is against the rules.  In fact, when I walked up to her, she tried to hide what she was doing.  Nothing gets me madder than knowing that she was aware that she was breaking a rule, but went ahead anyway.  

After placing her in timeout, I did some brainstorming... what could I do to get through to her.  Then it came to me.   My pretty pretty princess LOVES her pretty pretty clothes.  So I picked out 5 items from her closet to sacrificed as her punishment.  I showed her my choices and the tear dam was broken!  She cried, pleaded, shouted, asked me to spank her instead, ANYTHING BUT THAT!  But sometimes Momma needs to bring the Tough Love and I placed all 5 items in the trash.  

Gone for ever.  

Never to return. 

Not even to good behavior. 

 Eric raised his eyebrows at me.  "Really?  She can earn them back?"  NOPE.  NEVER.

And let me tell you, she has learned her lesson.  She has been mopping in her room for a half an hour now, depressed over the loss of her beloved clothing.  

Wow!  Guess she's not "just like me" after all.