Grounded

It's sometimes difficult as a parent to discipline your children and hold to the punishment. I know as a child I thought I had it all figured out on how to drive my parents nuts enough to let me out of a grounding. My dad was a tad bit more stubborn then I, so I tried a different approach. "Never let them see you sweat". I acted like I really didn't care. Sat in my room with a book near by that I could pick up when ever they came to check on me. I wasn't a bad teenager, I just always wanted to have the final say.
As I became a parent I tried to talk sense in to my children. If you lie you will get caught, if you mouth off you will be punished, if you steal anything that doesn't belong to you prepare to sit for a long time, if you come home with bad grades you will spend a lot of time at studying. They were pretty good kids, but there were some groundings along the way. My son would go downstairs and blast his rap music thinking he would drive us crazy and we'd let him out. Fuse boxes are a wonderful thing. I can only think of one time my daughter was grounded, and for good cause. She didn't seem to care (just like me)
As a grandparent it is sometimes difficult to see your grandchildren punished. My parents thought I was to hard on my kids (they softened in their elevated age). In fact if I would yell at my kids in front of my mother she would shush me and give them a cookie or something. She referred to it as their safe haven.
Well, now that we have these 13 going on 18 year old girls living in our home I am getting caught up in the Grandma thing-but still have the instincts of a parent. I was wondering how long it was going to take their father and my daughter to get together and put the brakes on. They were busted out over the weekend for lying and using the old "Mom said it was okay" to their father and vice verse to their mother. But not wise enough to think the parents would talk to each other. This prompted their father to head to the mall and find his girls and take them home. Grounded from phone, computer, sleep overs,facebook, friends and if he had it his way he would be at school during their lunch hour.
This all happened on Sunday. On Monday I picked them up from school and the two girls who usually are constantly on their phones from the time they get in the car were silent. I was supposed to play dumb (daughters request) and asked how their weekend was. Already knowing the entire story I was impressed to hear them both describe in detail the events leading to the grounding. They did not look for sympathy, nor did I offer. I made a comment that if you have to lie about something then you know it is wrong, and you will always get caught. They both nodded and I mentioned that probably all they were taking in from me at the moment was "blah, blah, blah". I was also impressed by the comment "Yeah, we have a lot to learn. We thought we were pretty smart".
I will say, their room is clean, their laundry is done and I think I actually saw one of them with a book. This act will not get by me, and hopefully not their parents.