Ok. Did you read it? What was this child's offense? "Playing on the phone AFTER bed time." This child obviously broke some before-stated rule: no phone after bed. While we do not have this issue in our home, if we did I would make the punishment fit the crime.
So you want to break my rule and play on your phone after bed? Fine. Give me your phone for xxx days/weeks. No phone, no playing.
But what is the punishment for this child? Write a nice letter to a family member. Why is that considered a punishment? It should be considered a blessing and a privilege, but this child is being taught otherwise by having it as a punishment.
Make dinner. A punishment??? No!!! A blessing! And FUN too (but maybe not for this person since it has become a punishment).
Do laundry. Do the dishes. Vacuum. Water the plants. Clean bathroom. Take out the trash. Clean the litter box. Really? These are things that need to be done every day. They are not 'punishments', they are just normal, daily things that have to be done whether we like it or not. What is this child being taught by having these as a punishment?
I don't know how to word what all is in my head about this. It's just not right. I'm sure the parents had nothing but good intentions, but what are they unknowingly teaching here? I can just imagine said teenager (I assume it was a teen anyway?) moping around the house, ho-humming over all the things he/she has to do in order to earn enough points to get his/her phone back. OR, maybe he/she is like, "HEY, I'll just do xyandz really fast so I can hurry up and get my phone back." Let's think about this.
Ok, 500 points. Let's see.
Get laundry going first. 100 points. Total hands-on time from start to finish, including folding and putting away, maybe 15 minutes.
Clean the bathroom. 50 points. 20 minutes of work maybe.
Clean and organize a few kitchen cupboards (we'll pick the easy ones of course). 50 points each x 3 cupboards 150 points total. Easy ones in my house would take about 10 minutes each to unload, scrub and reload. So that's maybe 30 minutes.
Ok, now that's 300 points. We need 200 more.
Empty AND load dishwasher - 100 points. It's been a while since I've had a dishwasher, but when I did, Corban was about 10 years old and part of his morning routine was unloading the dishwasher. It took him about 5 minutes (and was full). I loaded it throughout the day, but it couldn't have taken me more than 10 minutes total. So that's 15 minutes.
Up to 400 points now. 100 more to earn.
We'll have our imaginary unruly child dust the living room and clean and wash the kitchen counters for another 50 points. It takes about 2 minutes to dust my living room, but I do not like stuff sitting around so there's not much to dust. I've been cleaning houses professionally for many years and I cannot think of very many living rooms that took me more than 15 minutes to dust.
And cleaning and washing the kitchen counters, again, this is not very time consuming at all. I cannot see why it would take more than 10 minutes, but we'll say 15 just in case.
For the final 50 points, our child is going to prepare and cook dinner. What kind of dinner? I don't know. How about spaghetti. A jar of store sauce, a package of pasta and a bag of frozen vegetables. Done. Easy. Healthy enough. Preparing AND cooking this would take about 15 minutes if you have good pans that bring water to a boil relatively quickly.
500 points. Roughly 2 hours of work. Cell phone is back in said child's hands the very next day after the offense.
Well, I'm glad I did all of that because I CAN see how the child MIGHT learn SOMETHING from this, however I still do not believe it is right to punish a child with normal, daily house duties and being kind to family. PLEASE make the punishment fit the crime. And what is a child doing with a cellphone anyway? Another subject for another time, perhaps.
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