For real my ex-husband threatened my then 4 year old daughter with that punishment.  We all know that kids can drive us to distraction and occasionally we have an interaction where the child says “So, I don’t care” for each time you tell them stop-or-else.  For one thing,  threatening more than you did last time doesn’t work.  It’s not like her 4 year old mind is going to say “So, I don’t care if you tell me to sit on the chair for a time-out.  I’m holding out for no TV or dessert but early bedtime because THEN I’ll listen to you.”  And it’s a no-brainer that when we’re calm we realize that you can’t threaten something that you won’t actually do in a million years.  However, this time he kept upping the ante on the punishment until he yelled OR YOU’LL HAVE TO SLEEP IN THE GARAGE!  Really?

Being a smart child she responded “No I won’t.”

I intervened.

I had a similar moment recently with one of my high school students.  Don’t worry, I didn’t threaten him out loud with sleeping in the garage.  I did ask him to stop talking and focus.  He didn’t.  It went kind of like this…..

Him:  talk, talk, talk, laugh

Me:  Please stop talking and focus.

Him:  talk, talk, talk, laugh

Me:  I’d like to talk to you outside.

Him:  laugh laugh laugh okay

Me in the Hallway:  We’ve discussed this before and it has to stop.

Him:  This is how I am. I’m not going to change.

Me:  Now I’m going to call your parents. Your behavior is inappropriate and that’s the next step.

Him:  So? They know how I am.

Me:  Then I’m going to write a behavior referral.

Him:  So? I don’t care.

Me silently in my own head:  Stop or you’ll have to sleep in the garage.

I wasn’t able to give myself a time-out to regroup, but I did realize at that point that we were both acting like little kids, even though I’m 61 and he’s 18.  And I want to stress that I have very good classroom management so this was rather a shocker to me.  But the important lesson to learn here?

There’s no sleeping in the garage on my watch.