Imaginative discipline inspiration required for recidivist DD2 required. Be bold.

[snigger]

DH has undone my normal discipline methods with incorrigible DD2 by slapping her with a £10 fine (that's all the pocket money she has saved) and a tv ban all weekend, leaving me faced with a bleak wasteland of weekend to get through.

I don't want to go over his head and rescind his punishments, but he's gone in all heavy-handed over something and nothing and should know better and I have the bitter experience feeling DD2 will react accordingly.

If he doesn't change his mind, I need some ideas.

Go for it - anything short of corporal or shaved eyebrows and I'm in.

Is Dh around this weekend? If so, get him to take her out somewhere. Father daughter bonding sounds in order!
Or if not, then you go out.. visit friends, go to the park, go for coffee and cake and a mooch round the shops (how old is she? may not work with young DD!)
She's had her punmsihment of no TV and the fine, so dont stay in all weekend doing nothing because 'we cant go out on a day trip/treat as she's been naughty'. Go out, all have fun and draw a line under the bad behaviour. By sitting and planning future punishment in the expectation she will be even more naughty sounds like a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy to me!

Sounds to me like DH should be dealing with the fall-out of this punishment, not you.

How old is she? What was the crime? And are your punishments normally effective?

Oh I'm not going to ban her from anything - far from it, anything that keeps her occupied...

It's purely that if she and DD1 row excessively or tell fibs or do mad unpredictable acts of civil disobedience I like to be able to have something to hold over them - usually a 50p fine and a promise never to shampoo the cat/use a beard trimmer/apply every plaster in the cabinet to imaginary wounds. The illusion of parental guidance helps me, if not them, and now I'm left with nothing - NOTHING! I can't put them into a pocket-money overdraft, that would be something they could blame me for in later life.

She's 7, nearly 8, and is damned by her overactive imagination.

She's never malicious, but she really does do first, think later, mostly with hard-to-clean-up after-effects.

You're right, DH needs to deal with this one, but on being discreetly ordered to review the level of punishment (for making 'wild bird food' by climbing on the kitchen counters and reaching up to the dry goods jars and mixing about £20 worth of pine nuts/pecans/pumpkin seeds/almonds then scattering liberally around the garden) he just shrugged and reckoned she needed shock tactics.

Hmm.

Is that what he thought was an appropriate punishment for feeding the birds ? How would he have felt if it was a 99p bag of peanuts she'd used?

I think in this instance I'd have suggested she use some of her pocket money to buy bird food.

He's naffed off because she's just finished a string of similar experiments and he thinks she's pushing her luck. Normally he's very laissez-faire.

I just think I've brought a mad professor into the world, lets endure.

Maybe he's right, but it depends on her personality whether or not his shock tactics make any difference.

My entirely non-malicious do-first-regret-later 10yo DD is just programmed that way. It's very very frustrating and no amount of punishing makes the slightest difference to her enthusiasm for projects.

Does your DD feel any remorse or shame for what she did, or for making you cross?

If so, then your DH's punishment is a bit OTT, I'd have settled for a good telling off and making her pick up all the nuts from the lawn . If not, she needs actual consequences, and the fine is fair enough. TV ban a bit less so.

DSs pocket money used to be behaviour-dependant using the "pasta jar". Each piece in there represented + 10p and each time they were good I added a bit, each time they were naughty I added a red piece which represented minus 10p. All totted up each Saturday and if there were more red than ordinary, they had to pay me. [evil]

It did work until it kind of drifted by the wayside.

I think you need to give her a chance to earn the pocket money back as the punishment does seem a bit extreme.

Can she do jobs for you? emptying dishwasher? hoovering? dusting? anything slow and tedious? I love the idea of picking up all the bird seed - slow, dull and outside (not under your feet!)

Castille - that's exactly it, she gets enthusiastically caught up in the moment, an idea grabs her and she just does it - I only fine her because I believe in consequences, but when she does something that upsets (eg spraying my sheets with Jo Malone - thought was there, but half a bottle? WTF?) she really does feel bad. Just doesn't stay with her long enough to consider her actions.

Maybe we should just respond in kind, make kites out of her school uniform or something.

SoupDragon I admire you. I started the pasta jar thing and lasted, mmm, one day. She obviously gets her limited attention span from me.

Bumpybecky - good idea, but how do I sneak it past DD1 without her clocking on? {grin]

Oh easy - dd1 also has the chance to do the very, very boring jobs and earn money too.

On the other hand dd1 might like to do play on the PC / watch DVD / play with her toys inside / do baking with you / whatever much more exciting thing you'd like to bribe her with!