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Well, I'm only the parent of one, a little girly, but from what I understand, assuming that all children are alike is foolish. Not that any of you are foolish. There are a lot of good points here. I look at it like this, but only for my child, this may not work for other kids.
Sure, we want to teach our children that hitting people for the hell of it is meaningless. At the same time, however, if somebody hits my little girl, or tries some sick crap with her, I think I'd be proud if she beat the shit out of him/her.
I think from the time a child is born you are unable to reason with a child through logic and decision making. Then, their entire childhood is a long transition from that to full blown reasoning adults(we hope).
I never question another parents technique in the hopes that they will leave me to my own devices in child bearing. Because of this I am able to be more consitant, and I believe being constant is the key. If, at home, a child does something wrong and you spank them, but in public they do the same thing wrong and you let it slide so nobody sees you spanking you child, then the child gets mixed messages about the spanking.
My little girl is two and is getting to where she can understand things like, "You do blah, or you do blah." Then she makes the choice accordingly and I enforce it. For instance, "You pick up your toys and place them into the toybox, or you stand with you hands on the wall until I say you're done." At this point if the hands come off of the wall I will, without hesitation or guilt, smack her hands or butt until she realizes that she has made the less enjoyable decision.
I believe it is always best to give a choice and to delineate between what is right and what is wrong, but when a child takes an action not given in one of the choices, I'd hope that any parent would step in and physically force the child to redirect its attention to the chosen option. Otherwise the child has won, and knows a weakness in the system.
That was long winded, and I hope it made sense. One last thing.
I've not seen much here about positive reinforcement. This is my favorite. For instance I walk into Wal-Mart(my favorite store) and say to Carisma, "If you do exactly as I say while we are here, then you can ride Garfield when we are leaving. Ok?" She always agrees. However, not always does she hold up to her end of the bargain. If, even once, she gets out of line I tell her now she doesn't get to ride garfield. As we are leaving the store, despite her efforts to exploit my weakness to "I love you"'s and kisses on the cheek and aside from all the begging that she promises to be a good girl and wants to be my best friend I still do not let her ride. CONSISTENCY! I told her the stipulations and held her to them. Sometimes it breaks my heart to do so, but I really think that is where success lies.
On the flip-side, when she does do well, and get to ride garfield or whatever enjoyable event, it makes me very happy to see her enjoying herself as a result, and she is also very proud of herself.
Herk
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-Blind faith runs into things!-
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