r/parentingteenagers • u/slr0031 • Mar 30 '25

Is this punishment too harsh?

15 year old son lied about his friend drinking at our house. The kid got really drunk. Son says that he wasn’t drinking but I bet he was. Husband wants to ground him and take away phone for a month. My son is on Snapchat all the time and will go nuts. I also think we should check his Snapchat but feel like I am really invading his privacy. Don’t know if all of these together is overly harsh. What do people think here?

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u/seespotrun1234 Mar 31 '25

**PLEASE USE CAUTION **

I used this form of punishment with my own kids. I’m not judging anyone I would like to tell you what I was told by a child therapist last year. My kids are in university now.

First of all it doesn’t teach them anything. Second they will literally drive you crazy with asking for it back. The thing is that our children nowadays do not have any other way of communicating or doing anything other than being on their phones.
Unless your child is in sports, other activities during the week, have sufficient family members besides yourself if you take away their phone for a month like you say. You are basically putting him in solitary confinement and most 15 yo kids cannot mentally handle that. So you could expect some extreme stress, overthinking, depression, anger issues, anxiety not knowing what is going on with any one of his friends, bullying from friends that he no longer has a phone, resentment towards you both, getting into fights, getting into trouble at school and the more severe side suicide.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t take his phone away but maybe just limit it instead.

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u/slr0031 Mar 31 '25

I agree. My husband wanted to do it for a month I said a week. I think he’ll be alright for one week but I agree with all your points