10 Quick Ways to Make Your Child Furious

March 19th, 2012 by admin

Let me preface this article with the statement that all children are different!  You may have a hothead that will fly off the handle at the slightest thing, or you may have the calmest, most laidback child ever that rarely loses their temper. And you may have a child that falls squarely in the middle of these two extremes. I’m going to shoot for those that fall somewhere in the middle.  Disciplining your child usually has the immediate effect of making them pretty angry, even when the discipline is well-deserved. So if you’re looking for a way to punish your child, which will inevitably result in them being mad at you, then check out these ten quick ways to make your child furious:

1. Take away their favorite privilege: One effective way to discipline a child is to take away something they love.  If they come in every day after school and plop down in front of the TV, then maybe you need to take away television privileges. If it’s spending the afternoon playing on the computer then revoke their computer time. Whatever it is that they love to do is what you take away in order to get them to behave themselves.  Beware though; this will make most children furious.
2. Ground them: Usually this comes as a result of being late from being out with their friends or deliberately disobeying orders from you.  Whether it’s your ten year old that was supposed to be home for dinner at 6:00pm or your teenager who missed curfew because he was out with his girlfriend, this is a good way to punish them and to make them mad as a hornet.
3. Tell them they can’t go with their friends: Everyone is going to the movie tonight, but you had other plans made already.  You won’t let them go with their friends and they get mad.  While they think you are punishing them, you’re really just continuing on with the plans you already had in place for the family.  Once they blow up and then cool off hopefully they will understand that you were not trying to make them mad.
4. Take away their phone: Kids today are addicted to their phone. Actually people in general are addicted to their phones these days. Look around at any given moment and you’ll likely see people typing or chatting on their phones. It’s this dependency on having a cell phone available that makes taking it away such an effective punishment. Kids call or text their friends all the time, and if they lose their phone privileges then they will miss out on what everyone else is saying.  This is liable to make them really mad.
5. Criticize them: This one will really depend on the child and it’s important that you don’t go too far out of line with this one.  If your child thinks they are really good at something, like a sport, and you criticize them on their skills, then they may blow their top; however if your child is wearing clothes that don’t match and you criticize their choice in attire they may not really take it to heart and just go change.
6. Complain about their boyfriend/girlfriend:  Just like a parent would not take kindly to someone complaining about their child, who is someone they love, kids are the same with their boyfriends and girlfriends.  If you complain about someone they love then they will probably take that personally and they will get angry and defend that person, even if they have said similar things in the past.
7. Give their favorite toy to charity: I’m sure no one would do this on purpose, but when we get in clean out mode and start going through stuff that we think our children don’t need or play with anymore it can be dangerous.  Some kids that want to keep everything and are more attached to the idea of having a lot of things; in these situations a parent can be forced to give their toys away while they are not around in order to get anything out the door, and the kid will be none the wiser.  However, if your child is not like that it might be a good idea to run by them what you want to give away to make sure it’s not a treasured friend. 
8. Send them to their room: I suppose if your teenager loves spending time in their room they might not care about this, but if your child loves to be involved in what is going on in the rest of the house then sending them to their room is the worst and meanest thing you could do to them and they will tell you about it.
9. Gloat about beating them badly at a game: Some people are better losers than others, but even so no one really likes to lose at a game.  If someone takes losing well then it’s usually because they don’t really care about the game or they feel like they didn’t try to win, and they can make those excuses to themselves about why it doesn’t matter that they lost.  However, no one likes it when someone gloats about beating you.  This is a good way to make your child mad in a hurry.
10. Take away their allowance:  The all mighty dollar means a lot to some kids.  Now if you have a young child who has yet to figure out the value of a dollar then they won’t care if you take it away.  However, if you have a child who is a little older and they are saving up for something then they are liable to get really angry when you take away their allowance.