Quote:
Originally Posted by snowy
Nothing worked but pain because that's what you were conditioned to expect, Poetry.
Think of discipline and punishment as a continuum, with positive discipline on one end and corporal punishment on the other. Using positive discipline methods (redirection, conversation, explanation, etc) sets a child up to expect that. When you move towards the other end of the continuum, into punishment, children come to expect punishment. Once the card of corporal punishment has been played, they understand that their actions could invoke that punishment, and more or less laugh at any attempt to discipline them in another fashion. This is why it's truly best to start off with (and stick to) positive discipline.
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I'm wondering if this would have been true for me. I don't remember far enough back (obviously) to when I first started needing punishment to keep my behaviors in line, and what they did.
I just remember knowing that sitting in time-out was simply something to pass the time. That while writing lines, I could be daydreaming. That there would be other parties and other days to have my friends over. That if I didn't get my allowance this week, I would get it next. If my mother offered me $10 at the end of a trip and slowly took it away over the course of the trip due to my actions, even if I had a dollar left at the end of trip, it was a dollar more than I would have had. $0 and I had no loss, as I started with $0.
Also, I had child "principles". I had to stick by them. I was incredibly stubborn. Even at 5, I was doing the Bender "Breakfast Club" thing of encouraging more punishment, trying to find out what the breaking point was, the worst thing they could do to me, so I could determine what was worth it.
But if a bar of soap came out, or my father raised his hand to smack me, I was cowed.
You make me wonder if they did or did not start with physical punishment, if anything else would have been more effective in curbing my behaviors. I know my parents weren't the best at raising me, did some things they shouldn't that impacted me poorly. I'm not sure if this is one of them.