Autumn Was "Grounded" from Reading As a Kid

[notsocommon]

I will say it yet again. There is more to life than mad reading skillz. If reading interferes with learning other aspects that are vital in life, then you sometimes need to pull the reading back a bit.

Examples:

If my daughter's room looks like a tornado struck, nothing gets it cleaned up and organized faster than taking her book away. I view the ability to keep order as absolutely necessary in the life of a functioning adult, therefore, I will do what it takes for her to learn it.

If my daughter has her nose stuffed in a book when she should be playing with other kids or otherwise socializing, the book will be taken away and she will be told to go play. Social skills are vital.

If I feel she needs to practice her math more to help improve her scores, the reading will not happen till she has spent a satisfactory time working on her math with satisfactory results. Math skills are important especially with that stupid EOG test. If she fails, she has to repeat the third grade.

We are a family that reads and reading is highly valued....but not to the exclusion of other things. My kid will not be able to grow up and say "Oh boss, I did not do my job, my work area is a disaster area and no one likes to work with me.....but LOOK! I finished my book!"

[PBrooke]

For crying out loud. If a kid is reading so much that they prefer it to TV, video games, toys, etc, then threatening to take away a single piece of fiction or telling them to get outside and play is not going mar some mystical tenuous love of reading, nor is it going to destroy their education. If anything, it'll probably make them all the more eager to get back to their books later. Identifying what a kid considers fun and using it to motivate them is not the same as pulling out the plumbing line, nor is it the same as a book-burning party.

[maybeizfundie]

For crying out loud. If a kid is reading so much that they prefer it to TV, video games, toys, etc, then threatening to take away a single piece of fiction or telling them to get outside and play is not going mar some mystical tenuous love of reading, nor is it going to destroy their education. If anything, it'll probably make them all the more eager to get back to their books later. Identifying what a kid considers fun and using it to motivate them is not the same as pulling out the plumbing line, nor is it the same as a book-burning party.

Exactly. Thank you.

It was effective when applied to me because I loved reading so much. I still love reading. I love that my kids love reading. I even still have my have mad reading skillz. :D A week (I suppose I should burn my parents at the stake now, what horrible people) of no reading did zero damage, but it did motivate me to change my habits and behaviors so that I'd never have another week like it. Because I loved reading.

It wasn't a discouragement from reading, nor was it intended to be.

[kelseyjhale]

who the fuck would evedr ground there kid for reading too much oh wait.....CULTS :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[Kelya]

We can't keep our daughter in books. Right now, it is Captian Underpants...She will devour one of those books in two days, max. We agree to buy her one a week IF she takes care of the books she has. They have to be kept orderly on the book shelf-otherwise no new books.

I guess we are bad because we are trying to teach her responsibility, nevermind the fact that she is well beyond her years in vocabulary, expressing herself, reading comprehension, etc. She sometimes misses getting a new book, or reading the ones she has, because she does not take good care of them. Poor kid is going to be so damaged and unsuccessful in life! :roll:

Oh and? After having to pay for the fourth lost school library book, I have told her that she needs to keep them at school or in her book bag to be read on the bus.

Funny thing is, you can't keep a reader from reading. I have found my daughter reading labels in the pantry.

Have I or anyone else said anything remotely akin to "not buying your kid every book they ever want when they're not behaving well is evil!!! bad parent!!!" anywhere? Coz I don't see it. Unless you're actually taking all the books away and banning reading because her bookshelf is messy, I don't really get it. If anything I'd be amazed you're able to buy an extra book a week almost every week, we never had that kind of money when I was growing up, so I'm actually fairly jealous of your kid. I hated the Captain Underpants books, though. I much preferred babysitter's club, box car children, and sweet valley high (yech!). And my bookshelf was ALWAYS need. I begged for a new bookshelf for Christmas one year, best Christmas evAr.

[lilwriter85]

I was never grounded from reading. But I knew a couple of people who were grounded from reading. One of them was raised by her grandparents. Her grandparents had strict rules about TV so my friend enjoyed reading more and taking away reading crushed her.

[notsocommon]

Yes, she gets banned from reading if her bookshelf is a mess. Then again, she gets banned from her toys, too, if they are a mess or no Wii if the games and accessories are a mess or no videos if her DVD/tapes are a mess..... I am tryng to teach her how to organize and prioritize. I also hate hearing the "WHERE IS MY ________ SOMEONE STOLE IT!!111!!1" drama.

She gets a small allowance and that is what she uses to (usually) buy her books.

[emmiedahl]

I think that reading for entertainment is no different from television, as far as education goes. I did not learn a terrible amount from my late elementary Stephen King addiction. I don't think that being grounded from reading made me dislike it; it made me want to do it more.

If you have never had a bookworm kid, it is hard to understand. My husband does not like to read, although he wishes he did. He is amazed and thrilled by the amount that our kids read and would never, ever take it away. My mom and dad were readers, so they saw it as what it was for me: fun, with no learning value to speak of, and a way of avoiding things I needed to do.

[Terrie]

Emmiedahl is right that there's a difference between kids who simply like to read and serious bookworms. I was, in a word, obsessed. I read while walking down the street -- something my mom was convinced would get me hit by a car. I read while watching TV. I read before I went to sleep at night -- and often went without sleep, because I was caught up in my book. I read in the bathroom, at the dinner table, in class, in the cafeteria at lunch. I read while I was supposed to be doing my homework. I read in the car and on the bus (And missed my stop several times as a result).I read so much that they gave me bifocals in 7th grade, because I had chronic eye strain from so much close up work. I read so much I flunked three classes my 8th grade year. I read at LEAST four hours a day -- for my personal edification, not for school. I read a ton of genre, mainly sci-fi and fantasy, but also some mystery.

The only way for my parents to get me to do anything else was to take away my books.

[Angri-la]

My parents grounded me from reading all of the time. The ultimate punishment for me? Taking away my library card! It was effective because, as my mother put it, I "crawled into books", which was true: they were my escape. I took to reading labels and cereal boxes, and now it is almost impossible for me to not read or make anagrams out of any grouping of letters that crosses my eyes.

[Austin]

Another serious bookworm here, but I don't remember ever being grounded from reading. I read all sorts of books that were supposed to be way "beyond me" and I'm sure my folks would not have been thrilled with some of the books I read, but they were anti-censorship so I also doubt they would have forbidden me those books, either. Let's just say I found it best to not make it an issue by keeping those books to myself. I usually manage to read two-three books a week these days, almost all of it non-fiction with my guilty pleasure (probably shouldn't use that word) is that I luvs me some tru-crime. But mostly I read memoirs, biographies, and political stuff.

Keeping me from reading would have gotten my attention as a kid, though, and I can't say I think it's too harsh as long as the punishment is not protracted. In raising our own kids, to find effective measures, it was important to know how to "hit" (not literally) each son where they lived. One of ours acted like he would absolutely die without his cell phone, so if the line was too far behind him, even the possibility of losing his cell phone would straighten him right up. Another son couldn't care less about his cell phone, but loved following sports very closely, particularly MLB. Each child has a certain privilege or two that they really cherish, and if parents understand what that is, it's not that hard to effectively discpline a typical child/teen when it's really necessary.

[maybeizfundie]

Emmiedahl is right that there's a difference between kids who simply like to read and serious bookworms. I was, in a word, obsessed. I read while walking down the street -- something my mom was convinced would get me hit by a car. I read while watching TV. I read before I went to sleep at night -- and often went without sleep, because I was caught up in my book. I read in the bathroom, at the dinner table, in class, in the cafeteria at lunch. I read while I was supposed to be doing my homework. I read in the car and on the bus (And missed my stop several times as a result).

Yep, all of this. It went way beyond "I like to read", to an unhealthy place for me.

Thus the *benefit* of the short grounding from fun-reading, in my case.

I think it's genetic. :D My dad used to "get lost" in the library when he was a kid, and arrive home hours and hours past when his parents expected him...having read whatever book he was into while he was walking home.

[oscar]

Grounding me from reading - that is, locking the book cabinets - was the most serious punishment my parents imposed on me. My mom would phrase it as, "I need you to think carefully about what happened here, and I don't want you to get distracted. I am going to lock the book cabinets until [some time.]" It was a really effective way to make me take notice.

I used to read all the time, through childhood up until a brain injury in my early 20s. I used to have one book on my lap to read, and another on my desk for doing homework at the same time. Now I need a distraction-free setting if I want to retain information from what I am reading, and it is difficult for me to transition between tasks. I no longer consume the same volume of printed matter that I used to, because I can no longer do things like read and eat, read and walk, or read and fold laundry.

[library_youth]

I was never grounded from reading for any extended period of time. It was only for whatever time period I'd been sent to my room. I'd be told "don't you DARE read any books while you're in there." But books were never withheld from me beyond that. It was pretty effective - I LOVE to read and hated to be told I wasn't allowed to, even for a short time.

[Kaylee]

My mom used to get annoyed with me for reading, using the computer, or anything else that was inside and sitting still. She never actually grounded me from reading, but would come up with chores and things to do so I'd have to put the book down. I finally figured out the trick was to put a book or two in my backpack, go for a bike ride, then sit at the park, graveyard, or woods where I would be left alone to read. As I got older, I had a shelf beside my bed with a lamp and a stack of books and would read late into the night, which I still do sometimes (was up until 2am this morning reading).

One of the things that really sucked for me in my teens was being sent away to 2 different girl's homes that were supposed to also be schools but made little time for academics and didn't allow much reading. I even got in trouble at the first one for reading my Bible because they didn't want us reading beyond what were assigned for recitation and memory work and accused me of looking for the "inappropriate" parts. The second place I was in was a little better, didn't limit Bible reading, and one of the staff even brought some of us extra books to read, but things were screened and seemed way below the level I had been reading at (I read Anna Karenina and War & Peace, among others, in 6th & 7th grade because we were doing "Accelerated Reader" and I wanted to get the most points possible).

Even as an adult, one of the biggest changes for me since becoming a mother is not having the time to read like I used to, so I stay up late at night and keep a book in the bathroom and the kitchen to read as I can & take books to the gym with me to read while I'm on the treadmill, elliptical, or exercise bike. When I worked, I would "hide" a book in my lunch box and read when the inmates were asleep in between rounds and checks. I also got in trouble in my 20s with one of my real estate school instructors for reading in class after I finished the book work - he suggested I read the state real estate manual instead, but I had already read all of it (it's close to 1000 pages, but I'd had another class the year before and had read through the book in the interim).

I think I'm already raising a little reader, because my 18 month old will bring us books and park himself in my or my husband's lap throughout the day for a story, sometimes too. My husband also loves to read, so I'm pretty sure we won't be grounding him from books or reading. If it's a huge problem, we might make him do his chores and/or schoolwork first, but I have to force myself to do the same thing so I don't really see that as grounding or punishment.