Punishment

Punishment is a consequence of a wrong doing.  A just punishment should be in direct variation with the severity of the offense.  An effective punishment should not only match the severity of the offense, but also be appropriate and related to the offense.  The video we watched today in class tried to discuss this.  The video was a clip from the Today Show on NBC.  The reporter was interviewing two "professionals" on 21st century punishment.  The reporter asked what is an appropriate punishment for today's kids.   The "professionals" say that kids are so linked in to their technology that this is a good punishment. They offer ideas about taking away phones and texting.   They also discuss blocking or deleting their kid's Facebook accounts.  Sure these things are punishments, but I question the "professionals".  They never offer any sort of offense that could be worthy of such a punishment.  The possibilities are almost endless.  Is this a punishment if your kid comes home five minutes late from a friends house? What if it were two hours ?  How should kids be punished if they do something truly dastardly, like a felony or gets arrested?  This video does not discuss the severity levels of their punishments.  I believe an appropriate punishment for a child being home late would probably be something like an extra chore for being just a little late, to something more like home arrest if the child commits something dastardly like a felony.  I believe blocking a Facebook account might be appropriate if you could determine that too much technology was the source of the problem.  A common problem that Facebook could cause is the child not completing their homework.  Obviously, this may not be the only problem, but with most kids, Facebook is a place to waste time.  Facebook will do just that too.  However, I do not feel that blocking Facebook or taking the kid's phone should be the punishment every time.  After a while this will just get dull to the child, and they will not pay attention. Truly I don't think the "professionals" had any credibility in their field.  To me, they sounded like a bunch of phonies who only pretended to know what they were doing.  I am almost certain that they considered themselves the "cool" parents in the neighborhood because they did not delete the kid's account, they only blocked it for a while.  Really the report just made me upset, that these ladies only offered ideas about technology and didn't even acknowledge any other form of punishment shows that they do the same repetitive things every time their child misbehaves.