How do you discipline a very cranky and ill mannered 3 yr old?

Scolding and then cuddling straight after sends the wrong message to a child. If being told off you stick to it. I wouldnt make any difference between girls and boys and would find it strange to do so. If you want punishments to have effect you have to let them be punishments and not make them into a cuddle/loving good situation

Oh, I happen to know quite a bit about this lately. My daughter just turned three, and it was as though she went from a sweet little angel to a demon overnight. She's ridiculously smart, which is wonderful, but of course it leads to a number of bad things that smart people do...like telling a fib. We have a very strict disciplinary system in our home. We do not shy away from corporal punishment, as sometimes it is the only way to drive a point home, so to speak. The most important thing we keep in mind though is not to discipline a child out of anger. We always give a warning ("If you do that again, you're going to get a spanking,") and then when she does it again, she immediately gets a spanking. She knows it's coming, there are no more empty threats, and she knows she can't get away with it again. Afterward, we leave her alone for at least five minutes, wait until she's calmed herself down, then go and make sure she understands why she was disciplined. When she can adequately explain it to us, then we are satisfied that the discipline was a success. Of course, when she's not acting up, we have hours of coddle time, play time, sleepy time, reading time, and music time. She gets far more positive attention than negative attention from us; it's just that there are very distinct differences between the two situations.

I just wanted to say thank you for giving me a best response. Have a great evening! :)

I agree with you. If the child has done something wrong he needs to be disciplined and learn that he has made a mistake. Then later when he has had time to think about it is the time to give them a hug and let them know you still love them no matter what. But if you hug them right after scolding them then they will think they can get away with it again. I agree with you also that girl and boys should be treated the same way. I know kids have to be disciplined differently because each child is different. But if they misbehave they have to be taught that when you are wrong you have to take responsibility for it. My son has autism so I have always had to discipline him different from my daughter, but we have disciplined him. Just because he has a handicap does not mean he can do anything he wants and not pay consequences. What I have found with him though is that I have not been able to spank him because he has an extremely high pain tolerance. It would take spanking him too hard to make him understand. In his case, when he has done something wrong we take privileges away from him that he loves to do. This always works with him and I rarely have to correct him for the same thing. When it comes to my daughter, if she does something wrong I always ground her. She is a lot older now and too big for a spanking but she is not too big to get grounded. She knows as long as she is under our roof she will go by our rules.