People Share The Strangest Punishments Their Parents Had Ever Given Them

When I was 5 my dad had this threat he would always use that went like "putting us under the stream" or something, I can't put it right in English words.

I didn't understand what that meant until one night I just couldn't fall asleep so I was there lying in bed and when he came to check up on us (shared room with my 2 sisters) and saw me awake he decided it was my fault and he had to punish me, so he dragged me to the bathroom and put my head under the running cold water tap until my hair was soaked, then sent me to bed like that. A while later when he had presumably fallen asleep my mom came, having heard the entire thing happen because I was obviously shouting at him to stop, and dried my hair, cursing him up and down.

To this day I still don't understand what his logic was and he laughs about it when I mention it.

He always had it out for me during those years for some reason.

And if you're wondering why my mom didn't stop him my guess would be during that time housewives just didn't really go against their husbands for whatever reason, I don't hold it against her though.

baaabaaabitch

I was being a dick as a teen (I think I was 15) and tormenting my little brother by grossing him out. Stuff like burping in his face when he didn't expect it, making him smell my feet, etc, and he really hated it. It made me laugh and I called him a pussy for being grossed out so easily.

After he came to her crying one day about it, my mom warned me that if I didn't stop, I'd be very sorry.

I didn't listen. Worst mistake of my childhood.

My mom ran a small "doggy daycare" / pet grooming business. The next time I did this to my brother, she put me to work cleaning filthy dog kennels - without gloves, and without a scooper.

Worse, she introduced me to what dog "anal glands" are, which groomers often have to "express." Around 3 times a day that week, I had to express dog anal glands. I was not allowed to wear gloves. I puked. Every. Single. Time.

She planned on the punishment lasting all week, but my bro asked her to let me off the hook after he saw how defeated and broken I looked by Wednesday.

Woebegone67

Not really a strange punishment, but it turned out strangely I think. When I was probably 5 or 6, something happened (literally can't remember what I did to deserve the punishment) that caused my parents to send me to my room with no lights allowed on and the door closed. I'd never been able to sleep with the door closed and at least a light on in the hall or something til then. This time? I just went to sleep after a while in there with no lights, and that was the last time I needed lights on or the door open when I went to bed. Worked out well from my point of view IMO.

... Wow this kinda blew up over the weekend. I should say that I grew up during the late 60's when spanking was just a normal thing too.. I don't remember ever actually getting spanked though. I dunno. My parents were never cruel to us when we were children. In fact, maybe I was just sent to my room and I just didn't turn on the light myself (goodness knows I could have. The switch was on the inside of my room!). I might have just pouted on my bed til I fell asleep and realized later that I didn't have the light on. It was around 50 years ago or so... I remember that it happened, but I don't remember the specific circumstances.

MAcsSNAcs

We had 4 cats. Mostly because I wanted them.

But I often would "forget" to clean their litterboxes because it grossed me out. Especially when one of the cats weren't feeling well, I couldn't stand the stench. So I often just kept putting it off until someone else did.

After my mom got tired of this, I came home from high school one day to find all of the litterboxes moved into my bedroom. I was told they would stay there for a week. I was not allowed to open windows, or to sleep anywhere besides my bedroom.

She also replaced the litter we were using to a brand with no odor reduction.

It doesn't sound like much...but oh my god it was horrible. I would have much rather been spanked.

yogocoyote

My mom made me eat a donut. I only ate half.

I don't like donuts (it's something about the dough) and one morning in elementary I guess I was sassing off or something, but mom wouldn't let me eat anything else and told me I had to eat one glazed donut. So I sat at the table and picked at half the donut, and then found a book nearby and just ready for the next half hour.

She came back into the room and realized I'd chosen the only logical option for a picky eater: starvation, and gave up on the punishment after a while.

One friend asked why she didn't just let me starve until I was hungry enough, but that's a simple answer: I'd rather starve, and she got concerned when she realized how long I would go on juice boxes alone.

tieflingfxkr

I don't believe my parents punished me too much or strangely.

However I've been living with undiagnosed autism until just some years ago and grew up punishing myself more than my parents ever did. It's sad when teachers and parents do not realize someone has mental issues.

The worst punishment i recall was when i was in the middle of a depression, telling my parents i wanted to die and all they did was replying Mom: "You make me realLy upset when you say things like that"

And my dad: "Do it" and the stunning reply of "I can't stop you if that's what you want but at least wait until grandma dies."

It hurts a lot to get told those things when basically screaming for help.

viccylove

The "Buck Rag." Still have nightmares.

For those who don't know, a buck rag is a rag that's been rubbed all over a sweaty, oily, piss-soaked billy goat in rut, and is often used for goat breeding purposes.

In our Alabama town, it became popular for parents to use these to punish children. Goat farmers would even sell the rags for the purpose.

Basically the teenager would be taken outside, and the parents would remove the buck rag from the jar, drape it over the kid's face, and tie a knot in the back. Plenty of room to breathe, no room to avoid the smell.

I never saw why everyone feared it so much until my parents gave it to me one night for sneaking around with my boyfriend at night. I puked. A lot.

koreahetalia

When my sister was 5 she was handing out invitations to her birthday, around this time she had a fetish for long hair and she passed out an invite to one of her short haired friends. Then she turned around and yanked it out of her hands and said “you aren’t invited, you don’t have long hair,” and just walked away.

When the short haired girl got home she cried to her parents about what happened, the parents of the short haired girl called my parents and told them what happened. They interrogated my sister and when she confessed my parents cut her hair, she was balling all the way home.

Agent

No punishment. And that in itself was punishment.

I totally bombed during my first semester in college. I took 16 credits and ended up with a 0.77 GPA for the semester. Yes, less than 1.0.

My parents were disappointed, but told me that they knew I could do better, and they knew I would do better. They forgave me and basically said "Ok, so you screwed up, now make it better and make us proud".

The fact that they were not upset really weighed on me. It REALLY put a ton of guilt and shame upon me, even though they didn't put those things on me, *I* did it to myself!

It really motivated me to not dick around any longer in college. I buckled down and really succeeded.

whomp1970

They were mad I was playing too many video games (civilization, master of Orion II, world of warcraft I, Final fantasy I, 2, 3, tactics, ogre battle, Ur-Quan masters, okay, so I played lots of games...), so they made me go out with friends more. Now keep in mind, I did have friends and was social and would go out once or twice a week with them... but ANY video games were BAD.

So my parents forced me to go hang out in my buddies garage where they just drank and smoked up at 13 years old. A couple of them ended up getting into some serious drugs by around 16, and my parents still were forcing me to go hang out with them - because their parents were "good people" that will "sort him out".

Well, they never did.

I always thought it was funny that they considered cerebral strategy games more damaging to my development than hanging out with 13-16 year old drunks.

Suuperdad

When I was in the 7th grade I got a 2 day suspension for fighting. We were playing kickball and this one kid, Alexis, was being a real dick with everyone. Purposely trying to bean them as pitcher and running into them trying to knock them over when he was taking a base.

I'm playing 2nd base at one point and he runs into me like that knocks me back (he was pretty fat so it was a hard hit) and I just lost it and got up and started throwing punches. The gym teacher came and broke us up right away and dragged us to the principals office.

I'm lucky that it wasn't now because I would have probably gotten expelled, but I got off with just 2 days of suspension. I explained to my parents why I was fighting and they understood I was just standing up to an asshole.

It just so happened that my grandfather and aunt were visting from Mexico during that time. That aunt is 7 years younger than me, my grandfather had another kid with his new wife in his 60s, and my parents decided that my punishment would be to babysit and play with her the two days I was out of school. I always found it funny that my punishment for fighting was being a babysitter so my dad and my grandpa could do more stuff without a hyper little kid around.

eDgAR

I was about 6 or 7 and an extremely picky eater (still am). I could usually be found at dinner time sitting at the table refusing to eat and my dad making me sit there until I cleared my plate.

I was good at putting food in my glass of milk or in my napkin when no one was looking, so usually it was no big deal. However, on one particular night he decided to keep a close eye on me and we had crab cakes.

I absolutely detest seafood of any kind. I took a big bit of the crab, probably thinking that it would go down quickly and I would be done.

No, it went down and immediately came back up. My dad, being an asshole, decided he was going to teach me a lesson, probably about wasting food and his time, and made me re-eat the crab. I asked him about this recently and of course he has no memory of it.

I'll never forget it, it was that traumatizing.

ToothyCraziness

My brother was caught shoplifting videogames at the age of 14. I was 10, at home and totally unaware of what he was doing at the time. The police had been called, and my parents had to pick him up at the station (a scared straight kind of thing).

Understandably, he was lectured and grounded from video games plus certain other privileges for 3 months.

No so understandably I too was included in this punishment. When I protested and pleaded my undisputed innocence, the only reply was a confusing mishmash of contradictory explanations.

I would never do that to a kid.

wild0ats

My grandpa used to give group punishments to my mom and her siblings when they were kids. One of the four kids misbehaved? They all got what the bad one got, even if they hadn't been in the same building when it happened. And my grandpa was pretty heavy handed with the corporal punishment, even by 1950s standards.

I just don't understand that. This kid who did absolutely nothing wrong comes home to get their ass whipped over something they had no knowledge or influence over. That is downright sadistic.

I got spanked as a kid but it was rare, was never excessive, and I never got punished for something that someone else did.

830_L

My dad made me take apart a super cub aircraft engine and put it back together. My dad then got in the plane an flew to Boston. This was after I fucked up badly.

He wanted to make the point. That my actions had consequences and that if I fucked up something like that again someone I love could die.

Dad didn’t check the engine before he flew out . He looked me dead in the eye and said that I trust you, every time you have to do something like this, my life is in your hands. Your mother and I trust you.

Put the faith we have in you to work. You aren’t a stupid kid. Act like it. That moment fucking terrified me for a second, but I knew I had done the job right. Not really a punishment more of a life lesson , in my dad’s style.

pygmypuffonacid

Was 14yo. First time getting wasted. Like REALLY wasted. Had 0,5l bottle of 80% alcohol. No memory of the night. Apparently two of my friends had carried me home and talked to my father who had only asked whether I had anything besides alcohol.

Next morning my parents made me breakfast in bed. No penalty. Just a weirdly nice conversation about what went wrong. At the end my father just said, "I'm not gonna tell you to not drink, I know that doesn't work. All I want you to do is make better decisions in life than I did" and left the room.

Later that day we went shopping and they bought me a new snowboard. Weird.

GaymerPolice

my parents had a advertisement agency. They would also do pre-print work, i don't know the English term for it but they would do photo editing and magazine editing, yearbooks for highschools and such.

I was at fifth grade.

I found out they were doing the color and photo editing for a turkish porno magazine called 'CIKITA' (chikita)

and took it to school and monetized it. NBA collector cards, countless chocolate bars, magic the gathering cards, soccer cards were my main currency.

I was the king among men. Then a cunt tried to get his cards back and threatened me to tell the headmaster. I tore one of his cards and said if you tell them i will mess the others too.

He told on me. the fucker didn't see my bluff. i mean i cut the cards just in spite.

My punishment was to start working for my parents company after school for 2 hours everyday. I learned photoshop, coral, scanning old-school photo films, learned the printing machine and such.

I got good so they made me work until seventh grade, until they divorced and sold the company. their divorce was the best thing happened.

cunterus

Was grounded so much in my life. I would say 3/5th of my 1st 16 years were grounded. Neighbor convinced my mom to take me to family counseling. When i sat down with him he asked what my main complaint with them was. I said all of the grounding.

So he came up with a list of rules, and if I break them, I get kicked OUT instead of being kept in, but not kicked out to go hang with my friends. So, they put a tent up in the backyard, and when I broke a rule, I was banished to the tent for a pre determined amount of time.

This didn't end up working out, because breaking curfew was 12 hours out in the tent. So I would start breaking curfew on purpose, go out to the tent, wait for my parent to go to sleep, and sneak out of the tent and go hang with my friends all night, until the night I came home to a dead patch of grass where the tent had been, and I had to sleep the night on the patio. I woke up to my next door neighbor staring at me thru the fence shaking his head.

Safe to say, my parents went back to grounding me after that.

Side note, the counselor we went to was later arrested for molesting children.,

DabsSparkPeace

I was always more the artist type. Didn't much care for throwing the football around or working on cars. I wasn't belittled or anything, my family let me do me.

But my step-father was an evil genius and when I did something that was considered a minor infraction he'd give me the option of either going to bed early or staying up till my normal bedtime but having to watch sports with him in the living room. And I couldn't just zone out or read. He'd sit there and make chit chat about the game or try explaining the rules or the players stats or something else I couldn't have cared less about.

I'm 34 and we still laugh about that sometimes. Shit was brutal.

CDC

Let me first say that my mom rarely punished me because I was a kind of a goody two shoes.

Anyway, when I was in fourth grade I forgot to bring a homework assignment to class. My teacher made me sit outside the class while they went over the assignment. I was soooo embarrassed because I hadn't ever gotten into trouble at school and because my cousin's class was next door so he saw me sitting outside and he and his friends teased me quite a bit. I was a shy kid so the teasing was horrible.

When we got home my cousin then told both my aunt and my mom what happened so my mom decided to punish me by making me sit on the porch and watch all the kids play kickball without me. Looking back, the punishment was odd. I was on punishment but still got to go outside and at least chat with my friends. Plus, it's not like the punishment would motivate me to do better...I was a goody two shoes who made one mistake.

saintandvillian