[Labyrinthos]

I disagree on the spanking issue if only because my parents beat the crap out of me and the only thing I learned was not to get caught. I have never laid a hand on my kids. They are now in their late teens and, unlike me when I was a teen, they have never really done anything deserving of the woodshed. My approach was consistant standards of behavior and firm, immediate, and consistant consequences for failure to meet those standards.

[presidio9]

I'm sorry to hear about your parents. That wasn't exactly what I was talking about. I was referring more to little kids who can't be reasoned with. Hand only (maybe a hairbrush if it's egregious) and it stops when they don't fit over your knee anymore. If you gave your five-year olds a "time out" every time they ran into the street, and they are still around in their late teens to tell about it, you got lucky.

[Mygirlsmom]

That's the problem I had with spanking - rather than have sneaky kids who worked hard to avoid punishment, we have taken to making sure they know the lesson that needed to be learned.

That takes effort - as you stated - applying consistent and transgression-appropriate consequences. It also means that discipline is an ongoing process - not just something applied when someone has done wrong, but educating constantly on the right way to do things as well.

We've had very few problems with our teens thus far, and the few times they've really messed up, in addition to loss of privledges, we required an essay stating what the problem was, why it was wrong and what they needed to do to set things right and go forward from there. Suggestions of future writing assignments seem to take care of the little things.

[Albion Wilde]

I disagree on the spanking issue if only because my parents beat the crap out of me and the only thing I learned was not to get caught. I have never laid a hand on my kids. They are now in their late teens and, unlike me when I was a teen, they have never really done anything deserving of the woodshed. My approach was consistant standards of behavior and firm, immediate, and consistant consequences for failure to meet those standards.

I totally agree.

One of the problems with bad parents is that they are unwilling to behave well themselves and act as role models. They think they can lie to their boss over the phone in front of the kid, yell and disrespect their spouse, do dope and booze in the house, speed with the kids in the car and then lie to the policeman who stops them, and then get mad at their kids when they mess up.