A Murrikin friend occasionally gave her kids time outs for naughty behaviour. Not that that in itself was unusual, but it went some way beyond the naughty step, where they had to sit still in a folding chair facing the wall or a corner of the room motionless and without talking, for up to an hour. Any talking or too much movement during that time was punished by additional time out or other sanctions. Which then weren't empty threats. It all seemed a bit drastic, and certainly wasn't the way I was brought up. More like borderline POW torture.
Goes a long way expaining why a lot of Murrikins become pretty fucked up adults.
Reminds me of an Alfred Hitchcock short where a boy is instructed by his highly militaristic father to just stand to attention and when he breaks that for any reason he is punished, and over the years the dad does various things to trick him out of it and then punishes him. One day he is overlooking the pool when the dad starts drowning and he just stands still and watches him die, and the ambiguity is if he thought it was a test, or if it was an excuse to watch him die.
