Yeah but I still am every time we have a FG Walsh has broken me <| sep |> So obviously the grounding and punishing is not working . Time to try another tactic . My philosophy with my boys is to always link freedom to maturity and responsibility . In the example here , I would not have grounded my kid for going into the woods . I would have reiterated that this was not acceptable to me and why and told him that I was mistaken in trusting him , but then left it there . And then next time I heard can I go out and play with Pete ? just said , no honey , you ' re not old enough . No lecture and no explanation . He would of course explode with outrage . But I would keep to a mournful , you aren ' t old enough to be outside unsupervised and I ' m sorry but I don ' t have time to come out and watch you right now . Maybe later . Or you can ask Pete to come in here . But I would maintain that it was my mistake for letting him go out last time . I should have known he wasn ' t ready , it ' s my job to know that . To children , agematurity is status they hate being demoted and conversely , nothing makes them prouder than being granted a freedom that their friends don ' t yet have . Now the ball is in his court he has to figure out how to get me to change my mind about this . It ' s no longer about one incident , it ' s about him . He needs to level up and you can use this phrase when he tells you he ' s the same age as Pete . Do not tell him how to convince you leave the ball in his court and make him figure it out . Pro tip if you want them to actually think over their actions ? Don ' t punish immediately . Punishment lets them off the hook because once you impose it , you are even . They paid their dues , they ' re serving the time but they are mentally free to blame you for being overly strict . However when kids do something wrong they know it when you don ' t react immediately they worry . As long as you are consistent enough that they know this isn ' t going to end well for them , they will wait for the other shoe to drop .