‘Grounded here means you’re grounded there’ rarely works
I recently received an email from two co-parents who wrote to me together — a novel approach, I must say. They were looking for direction. They knew they have a problem, they just weren’t sure what to do. They asked, “What’s good ex-etiquette when ...”
Parent A: My 14-yearold does something my ex doesn’t like and he’s immediately grounded from his phone. I can’t talk to him for weeks at a time when he’s grounded, and I pay for the phone!
Parent B: Nothing really matters to our 14-year-old son but his phone. It’s the only thing that makes an impression. I used to say, “grounded from everyone but your dad,” but those calls with dad are then turned into three or four calls a night for sometimes an hour at a time. I had to cut it off or the grounding would make no impression on him.
Your first take may be that these parents need to improve their communication — but, to me, it sounds like they are communicating just fine. They aren’t cooperating with each other.
“Grounded here means you’re grounded there,” rarely works when parents do not live together. No matter how well parents get along, most secretly hope they will win the “most favored parent” tug of war.
For this reason, I rarely suggest the “grounded here, grounded there,” approach to discipline. It’s too easy to sabotage and too difficult to monitor. And if grounding is too severe or too often, children, particularly teens, won’t want to come back and most courts will support an older teen’s choice. So now you’re setting both yourself and your child up for failure. That’s why cooperating with your child’s other parent is imperative. Your child needs both parents. You must be allies, not enemies, for the sake of your children.
In this particular case, if grounding is the only alternative, grounding from talking on the phone to everyone but the other parent is appropriate if boundaries are put in place before the grounding — and the other parent sticks to the agreement.
Co-parents, the best parenting tool you have is each other.