How to Punish Your Child for Getting a Detention

You might think that receiving detention is enough punishment for your child, but if you want to issue another form of discipline at home when your child acts up in school, you are not alone. If you want to ensure your child doesn’t misbehave in school again, doubling her punishment might be an effective way to do that. There are several means of discipline you can use at home, though you should try to base your discipline around your child’s misbehavior and personality for the best results.

Talk to your child about the reason behind his punishment at home. Despite the fact that he already dealt with punishment in the form of detention, make it a point to tell him that you are punishing him for more than what he got in trouble for at school. For example, if you had to take time off of work to pick your son up from detention because that’s the only way home, you are punishing him for the fact that his behavior cost more than just him.

Take away your child’s favorite privilege, advises Kids Health 2. For example, if he really loves to ride his bike or play with his video games, take away his ability to do so this on a weekend. When you take away things your child enjoys, it teaches him that there is cause and effect for his behavior and that bad behavior at school results in double the punishment.

Issue a time out to your child, advises the American Academy of Pediatrics. While time out is typically most commonly used in toddlers and preschoolers, it is effective throughout childhood. For example, if you put your child in time out for one minute per year of life -- such as 10 minutes for your 10 year old -- she will have to sit in a time out that long and think about what she did wrong.

Think before you issue punishment to your child for getting detention at school, advises the American Academy of Pediatrics. Don't make threats you don't intend to carry out. For example, in the heat of the moment don't tell him that his behavior cost him detention at school and the punishment of never getting to ride his bike again. You’re not really going to prevent him from riding a bike for the rest of his life, so this doesn’t actually teach him anything other than that he can get away with misbehaving because you can’t follow through on your punishments.