Groundings

We have a 16 year old daughter and live in the UK. We usually ground
her for a weekend. How long do other parents ground for? My wife
tends to make it a short sharp shock by assigning an essay to be
completed over the weekend.

Rosalie B....

I don't remember ever grounding my children, nor do I ever remember my
mom grounding me.

In the case of my children, it would have been too difficult to do
without grounding the rest of the family, because we lived in a very
rural area and if one was grounded the rest of us would have had to
suffer too, or we would have had to leave the person grounded home
alone.

Besides which, in those days, we didn't have cell phones or instant
messaging (no internet).

My girls dated very little in high school because they were too
involved with other extra curricular activities (swimming, band, jobs,
horses - mostly when they were older just horses which they had to
care for, train and compete with). My son dated a little more, but
there were other consequences for his misbehavior other than
grounding. My dh found beer in the trunk of his car, and confiscated
it, and told him he could have it back when he was 21 for instance.

dragonlady...

It depends entirely upon the infraction -- at one point, when we were
having curfew issues, it was one day for each 10 minutes they were late,
for example.

Aula...

I'm not sure, since you don't elaborate, what the grounding is for. With
that in mind I will only comment that in our household we taper the response
to the infraction. If grounding would fit as there is a trust infraction
type of issue [for example] then we would make it of a length and time frame
to fit the crime, so to speak, as well as the youth's and family's tolerance
[not over Christmas so we couldn't go to grandparents', for example].

If, otoh, the issue is more logically consequenced with something else, such
as no computer use due to an infraction with how the computer was used, then
we prefer that type of more logical consequence for the behavior.

Also, if the privilege/whatever that is restricted is not something of
importance to the youth then the impact will be minimal, no matter what it
is, so it must also be tailored to the youth in that regard. If the youth
is like I was as a teen, grounding would have no effect as I was the type
who would gladly spend the weekend in my room with several books to devour
in rapid succession.