Time To Screen My Daughter’s Books

I asked my oldest child if she had any ideas about how we could help support her younger sister, who has been having trouble controlling her temper lately. Angry feelings from little sis were coming out as physical threats, like hitting or kicking, and I was feeling frustrated and hopeless after a couple of weeks of dealing with this problem to no avail.

“I don’t think there’s much left to do other than to give her a grounding,” said my oldest child.

I could not have been more surprised by her choice of words. Not only did I not know that she even knew that word, but we live in a family where we try to avoid punishments whenever possible. We try very hard to work with kids in other ways to teach them how to be most successful in interacting with others.

“What do you mean by grounding?” I asked.

“It’s when you get put in the cellar for a day and a night with no food,” said big sister very matter-of-factly. “That’s a popular type of grounding. I read about it in a book.”