Pre-teen: Difficulty finding punishment to match action

Have you asked her what she thinks the appropriate punishment should be? that can sometimes be effective.

Give her a day to think about what punishment she thinks would help her remember the rule.

How about a good caning? Ten strokes sounds about right.

You won't let a friend visit?

No, my child is not to answer the door when she is home alone. Friends may visit when she is not home alone.

Please, tom tom was being sardonic.

Hahaha. I am new to this forum, so you never know. Lol

Have you made arrangements for what she is to do if there is police/fire etc at the door?

Great point! Yes, I told her to call 911 and verify with the operator that they are who they say they are. We do regular fire drills at home to make sure she knows how to respond as well. (I work at a fire department, poor kid.) We have also gone through what to in case of a break in, etc... the neighborhood is safe but you never know.

I don't answer.

I do if neighbors hammer at my door while screaming.. sez ms Grumpy.
My neighbors got me out when the house next door was on fire, all that at 4 a.m.

Wait. She's supposed to call 911 if there's an emergency, but then she has to ask them to verify they are who they say they are?

I guess her dialing 911 isn't enough of a hint? And how are they supposed to verify that?

Personally I don't think an official punishment is needed as much as sitting down and emphasizing the importance of abiding by your expectations, and why.

All punishing does is encourage someone to figure out a better way to keep from getting caught next time.

Personally, I'd rather understand why I'm doing what I'm asked and not out of fear of your punishment. Even as a child I understood that.

She can be become so paralyzed by your vague "you never know"'s that indeed, she may never know at lot of things.

I know you are concerned about strangers, but I don't know if most 11 year olds would not respond to friends at the door. There should have been a plan for that scenario.

She did not let them in, did she?

No punishment is needed. Your shaming and disappointment is enough.

If you punish your daughter, you are teaching her to not think for herself but to follow rules blindly even when they are stupid rules. Have you considered the fact that you might be wrong?

Look at it from your child's point of view. Your rule doesn't make very much sense.

When your friends come and knock on the door, the polite thing to do is open the door and talk to them. That is what you have taught her by example. Her behavior was completely rational and correct. She did not die. She didn't get hurt. And there was no reason to think that she would.

My 11 year daughter rides the train by herself in Boston. I taught her to be smart and to be responsible. I don't teach her to be afraid. In truth, the world is not a very dangerous place for her. When she is alone in the house, I would have no problem with her opening the door to talk to friends. In fact, a few weeks ago she called me to ask if she could walk to the library with friends. That was fine with me.

Eleven year olds don't need to be locked into crypts. They are learning to be mature and they need to be given this opportunity. Your daughter was acting mature. There is no reason that you should punish her for it.

My advice is that rather than punishing her. You should have a two-sided conversation. You can explain to her that you are nervous. You are teaching her to have respectful discussions with other people where you acknowledge their point of view. You can also listen to and understand how she is feeling. Then you can come up with an agreement that both of you are happy with.

And hopefully you can see that her opening the door to talk to two friends that she knows is a perfectly fine thing for her to do.

I can see the sense in telling her not to let friends in general in. Kids, but not just limited to kids, could quickly develop a very loose definition of what a friend is, and if it is a friend, who are they having tag along with them?

I also think that having a kid that age alone at home, without friends over, for just an hour or 2 is in no way isolating or hurtful to the child.
However, that said, I also don't see the problem in choosing one special best friend to allow to have over, with the understanding that it is that person alone, with one one else.

Well - having ONE friend over didn't work with my nephew / son I raised.

He just could not limit the number and I'd come home to have 5 boys in the house, - yes, they were totally absorbed with computer games.

Answering the door and letting kids in are two different things.

11 is a bit young to understand the ramification of being alone at home and not opening the door for friends. My daughter was around 12/13 when she was left alone for a period of time (we live very secure) and she always let friends into the house. When I objected she got sneaky and they left before I got home. Once I was early home and the friends left quickly through the back door. At that age they just don't get it, period!

Instead of punishing her, install a camera at the door and monitor who comes and goes. Also have a neighbor keep an eye on her if needed.

The concern about locking the door is an example of parents being irrational.

Many parents are ridiculously worried about things that are an extremely low risk. The greatest risk to a kid is a car accident. They can also be stricken by a disease, or mauled by a pet, or drowned in a pool. The incidence of strangers hurting kids is extremely low (most abductions or assaults on children are done by family members or people they know and trust).

And yet, parents are worried about locking doors and teaching kids to be scared of strangers. It doesn't make any sense.

That being said, parents are human beings... and children and parents need to learn to live together even though parents aren't always logical.

I think we all agree that talking with your child is the best strategy. The only time I punish my kids is when they are being openly defiant or cruel. Any other time I will talk things through with... and I tell them how I feel about the situation and I admit that I don't know everything (something that they already know).

But I do think that most parents would do well to lighten up about these things.

Depends on the child Jane. Both my younger sister and I were individually left alone for at least a couple of hours at a time by the time we were in 3rd grade, so about 8 years old. You watched tv, read, drew pictures, etc. it was no big deal. We lived in a house that was on the property of the family business, so there were all kinds of strangers around. I would have been insulted and would have thought you were treating me like a baby if you didn't think I could be alone for a couple of hours.

Jeez, that was like 2 television shows or a few chapters in a book. They'd be gone and back and I'd barely notice.

I'm guessing it was the same for my 3 older siblings too. We were really spread out in age so it wasn't like we were all at home at the same time. By the time I was 8 the older ones were usually out of the house doing something with friends.

Seriously. If you had a book to read, show to watch, a glass of water and an apple or banana to snack on, you should be set.

I was just taking a trip down memory lane, remembering when I became a young adult.

I moved to another state to go to college, and was absolutely floored how so many of the young women I was going to school with had great difficulty differentiating between their ass and their elbow.

The culture shock I experienced was the amazement how the simplest tasks or situations were so ungodly difficult for this group.

Thinking back on it, I would have to say many of them were the ones that were so protected from the world they had not developed much inner sense of what situations were potentially dangerous. They had never had to be responsible for making the small, then progressively larger decisions regarding their safety. They had no practice.

I can remember on more than one occassion saying to some other young woman, "are you kidding? you can't go there!" They'd go ahead anyway, and there was more than one story of how things didn't go well.

Yes, it depends on the child. I had a wild one and she would not have sat
down to watch TV or read a book - never on her own! Every parent is different and every child is different.