Kitty's "punishment" of not going to Brighton is not too severe. It is not a punishment at all but sensible parenting. Elizabeth had earlier begged her father not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, where the regiment of soldiers were moving. Elizabeth had warned that Lydia would be an embarrassment with her flirting and would be entering into a dangerous environment that would invite scandal. When Lydia does actually seriously jeopardize both herself and the family reputation by running off with Wickham, Mr. Bennet finally comes to his senses.
Up until that crisis, Mr. Bennet has taken a cavalier attitude toward his parental responsibilities, basically letting his daughters do whatever they want. He withdrew from a disappointing marriage to the books in his library. This worked with the older two daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, who were intelligent and sensible, but not with the younger three.
Seemingly all his life, Mr. Bennet has been ruled by the idea that everything will work out somehow. For this reason, he doesn't put aside money for his daughters to have dowries or curb his wife's embarrassing matchmaking tendencies. Only after his permissiveness leads to near disaster does Mr. Bennet wake up.
Although Kitty takes the restraints put on her as the end of the world, in fact, Mr. Bennet is doing her a favor by keeping her away from Brighton and the temptation to run away with a dashing young officer who would love her and leave her—leaving her as tainted goods in a society in which, for the unmarried female, sexuality purity was the highest value. Not getting to go to Brighton is no punishment: most sixteen-year-olds from good homes would not be allowed to go to such a place—especially while it is swarming with army officers—any more than most sixteen-year-old girls today would be allowed to fly down to Florida to hang out with the college frat guys during spring break.
We can be sure that some of Mr. Bennet's other declarations are exaggerations and that Kitty will be allowed to circulate as any well-brought-up young lady would, only without a freedom that could lead to scandal.
If we were to take Mr. Bennet's punishment of Kitty seriously, then it would be a bit extreme. After Lydia runs away from Brighton with Mr. Wickham, Kitty tells her father that she would not behave in such a manner were she lucky enough to go. He swears that "No officer is even to enter into [his] house again." None of the girls will ever be allowed to go to a ball unless they dance with one another only, and Mr. Bennet tells Kitty that she will not be allowed to leave their home until she can prove that she has been logical and coherent for at least ten minutes a day.
Now, Mr. Bennet is hardly a disciplinarian, and it is difficult to imagine that he would want to be around his family for enough hours in the day to actually enforce his new "rules." He spends most of his time in his den, attempting to escape his wife and daughters. Chances are that Kitty will never get the chance to go to Brighton, not without her parents' supervision at any rate, but it is unlikely that this punishment will come to anything more excessive than that.
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