as a parent

I am not yet a parent though, but I would like to make a comment on this since I will be a parent too someday. I would like to set my kids a good example. If my kids were to do a very bad thing, then I would punish him by depriving him of the things he wants to do like watching TV. He is not allowed to see his friends. He must go to school and go directly at home. He is no longer allowed to play with his friends for a couple of weeks. I would explain to them the reason why he is punished and what his mistake was. I would also cut down his allowance for him to really pay for his actions. On my own opinion, that hitting the child is a solution to the problem. It just makes things worst. Those parents who tried to hit their children just to discipline them, would show a bad impression on the children. They would be really afraid to approach their parents. Whenever they have problems, those children would anticipate that if they have a problem their parents would not be there to comfort them. I would like my kids to see me as someone they can trust and as their best friend.

Hi, I know you posted this question awhile ago but I felt I needed to response to it. I am a mother of 4 children. My children are all grown now but when they were growing up there were times when we did spank them. Not all the time but only when we felt that they really deserved it. For instance, we taught them never ever to play with matches! Well, my two sons were 6 and 8 at the time and set the neighbors fence on fire. That got them both a spanking! They also got another lecture on the dangers of fire. They never did that again! lol

My children are five years old, we do a combination of things when it comes to discipline parenting etc. we do not watch a lot of television, I encourage my children to play outside, in fact if it were up to them they would be out playing at seven in the morning. I also do not allow computer or gaming systems, they are after all only five years old. I monitor the kind of music they listen to, again they are five. We do spank when needed, they also lose privileges and at times have to still take naps if their behavior is real bad. Today they know that if they are good they get to go play wiffle ball tonight with the rest of the neighborhood kids, if they misbehave no wiffle ball and they will have to go to bed early. ON another note, we do not believe in our children seeing us fight and or drink to excess. I do not think it is healthy for children to see that.

My children turned 16 and 23 this month so punishments of any sort are mostly unnecessary. When one is needed now taking computer, cell, etc... is most effective. When they were really little a sharp 'NO' would suffice. Sometimes followed up with a gentle pop on the hand if they were really persistent. It was meant to hurt their feelings, not their hands. Both mine were very persistant, they were both ADHD. Because of this time-out didn't work at all. You pretty much had to sit there with them for how ever many minutes the offender had just to keep them in the chair. Which was a blast for them because they had Mama or Daddy's undivided attention. We did spank our kids on rare occasions. Spanking was supposed to get their attention and help them remember not to do whatever they did. But it seemed to bring a lot of anger on their part and frustration for all of us. And it didn't seem to do any good. We mostly just rode it out until they were old enough to have things taken away. That worked best. However, living with a 16 year old girl without a cell phone is pure misery! If I had it to do all over again I would do things differently. I believe in 1 minute of time-out for each year of age. And after the punishment is over sit down and talk about it. Let kids know in advance what the consequences are for bad behavior and be consistent. And adults need to present a united front. If you disagree about a punishment take it to another room.