I was about to post this in the "Rate your parents" thread, but it turned out to be a lengthy post and I would like peoples advice on this.
The biggest problem in our household is that my mum is extremely soft, she will never punish my brother even though he is a complete terror (and I do not mean this in the "*rolling eyes*, oh he's so immature" kind of terror.. I mean the "he's kicking and screaming, throwing things and shouting and swearing at my parents if he doesn't get his way" kind of terror. And he's 14. My mum simply tells him to stop and threatens him by saying she will take away something he wants to use, like his laptop, or TV, and not give it back until he behaves. This is all well and good, except those are empty threats because she will NEVER do that and my brother knows it. He knows he can get away with anything without consequences because he has never been punished before even when he is being a complete asshole.
This should be common sense that you punish children when they do wrong, because if you don't they grow up believing there are no consequences to their actions and they think they can do whatever they like. Right? I've explained this to both my parents clearly multiple times and they won't listen to me, they just tell me "I'm too young to understand" and "you don't know what it's like"... well that's true, but this is something most parents do and it's pretty obvious that their 14 year olds are better behaved than this one... Kid does something wrong > parents punish kid > kid realizes when he does that thing he receives a punishment > kid stops doing that thing in fear of being punished and realizes its wrong.
As it stands my brother is a disobedient selfish brat who sees nothing wrong with shouting and swearing at my mother when she tries to wake him up in the morning, saying bluntly to her face how crappy her meals are and then DEMANDING that she makes something he wants (which she then does) eating like a fat pig everything in the cupboard, complaining when it all goes and then expecting her to buy him more. Occasionally he also calls her a ***** or tells her to "fuck off". When he is at school he is fine and well-behaved, because at school he is actually at risk of being punished.
See, my parents were the same when I was growing up, but luckily I was pretty well behaved and turned out okay. I never remember even once receiving a proper punishment when I did misbehave though, except the occasional "you're grounded!" which my dad would promise would last weeks but ended up lasting about half a day until I would apologize and they let me out. My parents are great but they just don't know how to discipline properly.
How can I crowbar it into my parent's heads that they need to start dishing out punishments for my brother before we get the point where he isn't going to change? Help?
The biggest problem in our household is that my mum is extremely soft, she will never punish my brother even though he is a complete terror (and I do not mean this in the "*rolling eyes*, oh he's so immature" kind of terror.. I mean the "he's kicking and screaming, throwing things and shouting and swearing at my parents if he doesn't get his way" kind of terror. And he's 14. My mum simply tells him to stop and threatens him by saying she will take away something he wants to use, like his laptop, or TV, and not give it back until he behaves. This is all well and good, except those are empty threats because she will NEVER do that and my brother knows it. He knows he can get away with anything without consequences because he has never been punished before even when he is being a complete asshole.
This should be common sense that you punish children when they do wrong, because if you don't they grow up believing there are no consequences to their actions and they think they can do whatever they like. Right? I've explained this to both my parents clearly multiple times and they won't listen to me, they just tell me "I'm too young to understand" and "you don't know what it's like"... well that's true, but this is something most parents do and it's pretty obvious that their 14 year olds are better behaved than this one... Kid does something wrong > parents punish kid > kid realizes when he does that thing he receives a punishment > kid stops doing that thing in fear of being punished and realizes its wrong.
As it stands my brother is a disobedient selfish brat who sees nothing wrong with shouting and swearing at my mother when she tries to wake him up in the morning, saying bluntly to her face how crappy her meals are and then DEMANDING that she makes something he wants (which she then does) eating like a fat pig everything in the cupboard, complaining when it all goes and then expecting her to buy him more. Occasionally he also calls her a ***** or tells her to "fuck off". When he is at school he is fine and well-behaved, because at school he is actually at risk of being punished.
See, my parents were the same when I was growing up, but luckily I was pretty well behaved and turned out okay. I never remember even once receiving a proper punishment when I did misbehave though, except the occasional "you're grounded!" which my dad would promise would last weeks but ended up lasting about half a day until I would apologize and they let me out. My parents are great but they just don't know how to discipline properly.
How can I crowbar it into my parent's heads that they need to start dishing out punishments for my brother before we get the point where he isn't going to change? Help?
