When we shared a list of parents' most creative punishments, BuzzFeed readers chimed in to share their own. These are way more creative than getting sent to your room!
1. This cooperative punishment:
"My parents used to have my brother and I hold hands and say 10 nice things about each other when we were fighting. Almost always, we would end up laughing. I guess it was effective!"
— wyfy35
2. This impromptu book club:
"I had to read a self-help and personal growth book and have a book discussion with my mom when I was done reading it."
3. This definition discipline:
"One time, I told my dad that doing chores was torture and that I refused to be tortured anymore. So, instead of forcing me to do chores, he made me copy the entry on torture from our encyclopedia until I was begging to do the dishes instead."
4. This WiFi no no:
"Whenever I was being a douchebag, my parents would use the 'My Verizon' feature and turn off all of the data and cell service to my phone until they chose to start it again."
5. This ice cream fake-out:
"My sister and I had been at each other’s throats all day, so we were both shocked when my mom said she was taking us to Dairy Queen. We pull up to the drive-thru, she asks us what we want, and we give our usual orders. My mom rolls the window down and orders ice cream only for herself! Then, she ate it in the car in front of us the whole way home. It was soul crushing for us, but surprisingly effective."
— ryleighf
6. This song suffering:
"My dad had an eccentric client and every year for Christmas he would visit and bring us a weird gift. One year, he brought a clock that played a synthesized Beatles song every hour. As a punishment, my parents made my sister and I carry it around the house for 24 hours. It was AWFUL."
7. This fashion faux pas:
"I was being a bratty 6-year-old refusing to get dressed for school. I was promptly taken to school in my nightdress (my school uniform was handed to my teacher). I got myself dressed pretty quickly after that."
8. This 60 Minutes torture:
"I’m a twin, and growing up my brother was always trying to get me in trouble. One day, my brother tells me he knows this awesome new word and I spend the next 10 minutes parading around the house singing the word ‘asshole’. When my mom found out that my brother taught me this, they made my brother spend the whole day watching reruns of 60 Minutes that they had taped. They told him, if you’re grown up to swear, you’re grown up to watch the news. They even had pop quizzes after every episode."
— maddsb
9. This dirty deed:
"I came home late after I forgot to do dishes and wanted to go to bed. I found all the dishes, clean and dirty, on my bed. I never forgot after that!"
10. This modest donation:
"My dad's favorite punishment was donating our allowance money to charity."
11. This role reversal:
"My sister and I are complete opposites. Growing up, she was this bubbly, popular, outdoorsy-type of girl while I barely had any friends and I always preferred to stay inside and read books. Whenever we would fight, my parents kept her inside and made her read a book, and they forced me to play outside."
12. This brutal consequence:
"When I was younger, my older brother would take my doll. My father kept warning him to stop it, but when he saw my brother take it again, he told my brother, 'Since you like the doll so much, now you get to carry it around.' For punishment, my middle school-aged brother had to carry around my doll to school, basketball practice, and a baseball tournament."
— dguinn
13. This sibling love:
"My mom would make us sit and hug each other for a couple hours if we were fighting. We were absolutely not allowed to be mean or tell each other we hated each other."
14. This workout routine:
"My dad would make us do 100 push-ups, sit ups, or arm circles. Before we started the exercise, my dad would say, 'You’re either going to get stronger or smarter, and today it looks like you’re going to get stronger.' I was a little shit, so let’s just say I was a ripped little girl."
— tawnym2
15. This long-term benefit:
"This one was actually pretty genius, but growing up, anytime my brother and I said we were bored, my parents made us clean. At the time, it just helped eliminate the word from our vocabulary, but a genius side effect is that now when we’re bored, we both go ahead and clean. It worked out pretty well."
16. Finally, this amazing poker night:
"When my brother and I were in middle school, we were playing blackjack and were gambling our Halloween candy. Well, my brother threw the one king size candy bar he got into the pot, so I threw my king size bar in too. I won them both and my brother wanted his back saying it was just a game and he didn’t really want to give his to me. We got into such a massive fight over it and asked my dad. My dad walked over, picked up both our candy bars, ate them in front of us, and said, 'First rule of gambling: the house always wins.'"
— skailyr
Did you get a really strange, oddly creative punishment as a kid? Tell us in the comments below!
Note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.