shakran

Well you hit the nail squarely on the head with that last comment. In fact when I ready your question to me, that's EXACTLY what I was gonna say.

See, I can give you examples all day long. Ground them. Take their bike away. Sell their nintendo (or whatever the hell they're playing these days). Make them do very unpleasant chores (you, boy, go dig a hole big enough to plant that balled 6' pine tree). Fine him. Tons of viable punishments.

You have to tailor the punishment to fit the crime AND the child. Some kids love going to their room, so you wouldn't want to use that as a punishment. Some kids hate being outside so that could be an effective one. It ALL depends on the kid. At the same time, to fit the punishment to the crime, you wouldn't, for example, ground the kid for 3 months because he ran in the house. You likewise wouldn't make him sit in the corner for only 5 minutes because he killed the cat with a circular saw.

There are so many inventive ways to correct a child's behavior that using the same old barbaric ones constantly is not only unnecessary, but is antequated.

Spank the child? What's that teach him? "when someone does something that you don't like, hit him. A lot."

Put hot sauce/foul liquids in his mouth? "bad tasting stuff is punishment. If I make you eat your brocolli, I'm punishing you."

And another DEFINITE terrible punishment is making the kid write sentences. My parents used to do that - 100 lines of "I will not put a snake in mom's bed" or whatever. Well what the hell does that teach the poor kid? "Writing is not fun, and it is a punishment. I don't like writing!" That's just a GREAT way to get the kid enthused about english class isn't it?