What do you do when you ground your teen from a trip and the trip is cancelled?

I don't think this punishment will deter bad behavior. I think it will simply show him you're not a pushover and that you expect the house rules to be followed. If you want to deter an adolescent's misbehavior, I think you should revise your house rules to include his input and allow him to participate in deciding a fair punishment for his misbehavior. Otherwise, he won't necessarily think he's done anything wrong and will become more skilled at deceiving you. If he has a say in his punishment, he'll have to reflect on his misbehavior.

The punishment should carryover simply because your son wasn't smart enough about it. Why did he tell you it was canceled because of rain? If I were your son as I am infinitely smart - I would have told my parents this was a whole new trip and thus I had been punished for the previous one (unbeknown to you that it was canceled) and was free to attend this one.

Really I am joking - but look at this way - he came clean at least and didn't try to hide something like I would have so you must be doing something right?

I think at this point it is too late to back out as it seems to be decided. Maybe you and your wife can discuss in the future the best way to handle. In the long run, the really important thing is that your son learns that if he breaks a rule (like in life) there will be consequences that are typically not positive for you.

Who schedules two trips within weeks of each other, though? Waterparks do cost money and generally aren't super near to residential areas. I was also under the impression he didn't often get the opportunity to go on a trip like this, so in this case, I don't think the boy could have effectively lied. Smarter not to, in my opinion.

Also there are words called homophones (unless I'm forgetting their correct names). They are sound alike words, and sometime long ago I read that the brain may slip up with them and the typist won't notice. I do that sometimes, and get embarrassed if I catch it too late to fix online.

I never punished-by-connection to another event. If your son did something wrong then deal with it some other way than denying him another life experience. (Phone? Car? Etc)

He lucked out with the rain. Karma got you instead of him.

If he gets to go to this event only because it was cancelled and rescheduled, he did not lose any privilege. One option you might consider is to allow him to go to this event only if he will have a replacement punishment. The replacement punishment would have to be just as undesirable to him. That way he can pick his punishment, knowing that he will have to give up something that he really likes.

I agree. Keep your word, and learn from your error.

If the second trip gets rained out as well,
will your son still have this "debt to society" hanging over him?
At what point does he get to consider himself a "free man" again?

It wasn't his fault it rained, so you should let him go.

Of course, if you don't let him go,
you'll be teaching him a valuable lesson about how arbitrary and unpredictable state justice is.
So there's that point in favor of extending his sentence I guess.

Apart from learning that we have many views of how punishment should be doled out, we have also learned a valuable lesson- give a punishment which cannot be erased or postponed due to a weather event.

Me to. As a kid I didn't like my punishments, but I still love my parents. I was actually raised by my mother. My mom punished me and my siblings because she loved us. She wanted to make sure that we did good in school and stay out of trouble. My mom did her best to raised us into good young adults. I appreciate the fact that she actually care about how we might turn out based on how she raise us.

I would also add one more thing to that. It would also depend on whether or not he is repeatedly getting into trouble or a repeat offender. Or if he is a good kid who has rarely gotten into any trouble.

If a lot more time had passed since the date of the original trip, I might have agreed with you.

I agree with you in regard to weeks later. Months later or a year later would be too long of a period.

Who likes punishments?

If they are not truly excessive, or worse, arbitrary they facilitate the growth of children into responsible adults.

Children don't naturally understand that there must be limitations on their behavior, and their not born with some sense of morality and propriety. They must be taught.

Obviously some people think the lesson can be entirely verbal and no sort of punishment is required, and maybe with some truly extraordinary parents it can be, but it's not my experience, and I very much doubt it is the experience of 99% of parents.

My oldest son was a handful. Telling him we were disappointed in him or explaining how anti-social actions were harmful to others and eventually would be harmful to him didn't mean a row of beans. Maybe we sounded like the teacher of the Charlie Brown cartoons but our talks just didn't sink in. It was necessary to make him see that unacceptable behavior could have immediate negative consequences and so he ended up getting punished more than his younger sister and brother.

Once when all three of them has done something particularly bad, I marched them to my room and ordered them to lie on their stomachs on the bed. I then removed my belt and snapped it. My daughter and youngest son were reduced to fearful puddles. "No Dad! We're sorry Dad! We won't do it again!" I sent them from the room with a stern "You had better not!" and, in truth, they never did do it again.

That left my oldest son.

When I asked him "What about you?" he answered "You're not going to hit me."

Clearly the little bugger was calling what he thought was a bluff, so what was I to do? I don't regret that I gently lashed him on the bottom thinking that would prove I was serious. His response?

"That didn't hurt"

Some may argue otherwise, but I was convinced I had no choice. I had to continue with the punishment until it did hurt. Otherwise my credibility with him as a figure of authority would be shot.

The tough little nut took two more strikes before he relented.

Now lest do-gooders go all nuclear, none of the strikes were serious. He wasn't Superboy so if he could endure the first two, they clearly didn't hurt much. The third stung and that was that. He didn't have a welt that remained for hours, let alone a wound that lasted for days.

What he learned only he can tell you, but he never committed the specific transgression again. What I learned was not to put myself in another position where I had no choice but to do something I really didn't want to, and so punishments were thereafter all about deprivation of things the kids enjoyed, with no shortage of Vulcan Death grips or head cuffs when the boys acted up in public. (I freely admit to viewing my daughter differently but, early on, she wasn't the challenge the boys were)

Having said this our youngest son incurred the wrath of his mother at his sister's school play. With each transgression he was told he would lose a day of Nintendo privileges. They left the school that night with my son being banned from video games for three weeks! If she had told him that his punishment would be a meeting with Dad and his belt, it might have been different.

I hit my daughter only once in her whole life. She was 15 and giving us absolute fits the way teenagers can and was constantly fighting with her mother. One night we were standing in the foyer of our home and my wife was telling my daughter she couldn't go out that night and my daughter screamed "**** this family!" Without any thought whatsoever I slapped her across the face. I don't regret it in the least. Being an overly dramatic teen she told all her friends in school that her Dad beat her and we were actually visited by a 16 year old little **** who threatened me. He was lucky he left in one piece, but that's what happens with kids.

If anyone tries to tell anyone that they have the perfect way of raising kids that works all of the time they are so full of **** it's coming out of their ears.

That needs to be emphasized and highlighted. I completely agree with that statement.

Yes, people do have different ways of raising their children. I don't believe there is any one right way. I do believe parents should discipline their children when they do wrong. I also believe that the severity of the offense should dictate the severity of the punishment. A minor offense gets a minor punishment. A severe offense gets a severe punishment. People can debate whether or not they should spank their kids. As far as I'm concern, there are only to types of punishments. One punishment would be some type of spanking. The other punishment would be taking away something. I do remember being on the receiving end of a belt. I also remember having television temporarily taking away or not being permitted to go outside and play as a form of punishment. I turned out to be a respectful and responsible adult. I love my parents.

I think this is a good take on an alternative.

I remember approximately 10 years ago I witnessed a mother allowing her child to scream and yell out in a convenient store. I believe it was a 7eleven convenient store. At the time I think there might have been a couple of cashiers in the store. Not including the mother and her child, I and maybe three other adult customers were in the store. I believe the screaming child was probably around 6 years old. That's just an educated guess. The mother had told the child "no you can't have that". The child started to scream, holler, and cry at the top of her lungs because her mother had told her no. Her mother never raised her voice to correct her. Her mother never raised her hand to spank her. She calmly just told her screaming daughter "no you can't have that". This went on back and forth for a few minutes. This continue to go on even as they were leaving the store. Obviously this woman calmly telling her daughter "no" didn't mean a damn thing. Back in my day, any mother would have raised their voice and raised their hands and spanked that child right there in the store. The funny thing about that incident was after that mother and her child had left the store, all of us adults had shook our heads in amazement. We started talking to each other about what we all just witnessed. We were all shocked that the mother allowed this to happen and never really corrected or disciplined the child. The only thing that child learn was that she can scream out and yell whenever and wherever she wants and suffer no consequences.

Children need a framework within which to grow. Without one they will all be selfish monsters through no fault of their own.

Maybe it was a well scripted con. Did the mother pay for her stuff?

Oh you wry cynic.