I was talking with a mom friend of mine about the mean things that we threatened our kids with that we had to follow up on to show them we mean business. This came in the wake of me taking Paul to art class where a kid was acting up and his mother said, at least eight times, "A.J., if you don't behave we are going to leave." And they never left. So no wonder the kid was behaving badly--there were no consequences.

I told my friend about the time I (briefly) closed the door on Paul when he refused to come inside the house and I told him that if he didn't come in or let me pick him up, I was going to close the door. He refused, and so, click. (He came in immediately afterwards.) My friend told me about the time she put her daughter on sidewalk when it was 15 degrees out because she wouldn't put on her boots. So I asked some friends on Facebook what some of the meanest things they've had to do to their kids were in the name of not backing down:

After a way too early morning and lots of screaming on C's part, mostly about nothing, it culminated with him yelling at me that he wouldn't eat what I was making for breakfast. I told him that if he didn't stop yelling at me I was going to eat his breakfast. He screamed,'I don't care Mommy!" So I ate his breakfast in front of him while he stood slackjawed.

H. once pretended to go to sleep on one of our deck's stairs and when she wouldn't get up, we told her we were going inside and leaving her out there. And then we did. We stood in the window and watched for her to get up, and then when she didn't, we grabbed her and skipped her bedtime story.

One time my kid was bellowing/wailing in the yard IN THE SNOW in a short sleeved shirt because he refused to wear a coat and then was SUPER PISSED that I would not leave the house with him (because I said I was not going to go until he put his coat on). A RANDOM MAN walking by on the sidewalk witnessed my child's bellowing/wailing and RANG MY DOORBELL to inform me that my child seemed very upset. When I said, yes I know, he said, He's not wearing a coat. (the LOOK on his face!!!) I said yes I know, shut the door and began wailing.

Two years ago, when she was six, [my daughter] woke up on the day after Christmas and refused to take her medicine. I'm going to fast-forward through a ridiculous day: We left my parents' house, without any of her presents, several days before we were planning to leave. She asked if she could take her meds in a McDonald's parking lot about two miles from my parents' house. We gave her her medicine, and we kept driving from Northeastern Ohio to mid-Michigan. Without her presents.

The 5-year-old was having a temper tantrum about something (it was probably ice cream related, but I honestly don't remember) so he gave her an ultimatum: Cut it out or we're leaving the zoo immediately. She didn't, so we did. This sucked for EVERYONE, of course. But it clearly made an impression on her because she's 8 now and remembers it vividly ... leaving the zoo before she'd seen the elephants.

Last minute canceled her birthday due to her being a repeated shithead. Canceled her going to other girl's birthday party the day of for same reason.

When repeatedly asking a 7-year-old to pick up her toys and she laid on the couch looking right through me with an incredible skill of ignoring me, I looked right at her, picked up her toys and threw them in the trash.

I once grounded my daughter from wearing the color black (when she was in junior high and it was the highest currency in her mind) for an entire week. Taking away electronics did nothing like this did. She knew I meant business. She still talks about this punishment years after.

 We were having trouble getting our then-3-year-old to eat her dinner. Big sister was eating it just fine, so we knew it didn't taste awful. We had earlier promised everyone ice cream for dessert, and had told her "no dinner, no ice cream." So, she got to watch her big sis eat that ice cream like it was the best thing ever. Sobbing ensued.