Now, parents use 'digital' grounding disciplinary tool

Washington, Sep 6 (ANI): In our digital age, even parents have adopted high tech art of family discipline-by snatching cellphones, blocking Facebook pages, pulling the plug on PlayStation.

When Lantha Carley's high-schooler got a midterm grade report that contained letters of the alphabet that were not A, B or C, she decreed there would be no more Facebook until he delivered a report card with better grades.

"He lived with no lasting damage," the Washington Post quoted Carley as saying.

"It's a modern version of grounding," said Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist and author of 'The parents we mean to be.'

"It's like taking away a weekend or a couple of weekends. It's a deprivation of social connections in the same way," he added.

In a report earlier this year that captured part of the trend, 62 percent of parents said they had taken away a cellphone as punishment, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Parents "know how important and vital it is to their teens' existence," said the report's co-author Amanda Lenhart.

"They were getting them where it hurt," she added. (ANI)