Effective Punishments

Five elements of effective punishments are:
1.  Identify the specific act that was wrong.
2.  Describe the impact of the misbehavior
3.  Make suggestions for alternatives of the undesired behavior.
4.  Give a clear statement of what the punishment will be.
5.  Give a statement of your expectation of how your child will act next time.
(Laurence Steinberg, The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting, page156)

If you choose to use time outs, a good rule is to but the kid in time out one minute for every age they are.  For example, a 4 year old will get 4 minutes in time-out.  If the kid goes longer than this, their attention span has gone beyond the bad behavior.  It was interesting to learn that after a time-out you shouldn't come back to the the offended child, still grumpy from their actions.  We need to ask them to do better next time.  I think lots of times, I still let their actions bother me, and then give them a big lecture after the time-out.  Time-outs are good too, because sometimes the parents need a  few minutes to re-group and calm down.

We also learned this week, that if kids are having tantrums then you  have them re-pay you in time wasted while you were dealing with the melt-down.  They need to understand how busy parents are.  So if they melt-down for 30 minutes, then they owe you 30 minutes of doing chores to make up for it.  I like this idea, because it feels like there is always something to do and your kids just don't get it.

And again the important thing is to be consistent.  If you always threaten punishment and never follow through with it, your kids will soon learn that they can get away with it again.  It is also important to help the child know that you heard them, but then you can help them understand that sometimes what they are demanding just isn't possible.  Dr. Karp teaches about The Happiest Toddler on the Block.  Dr. Phil segmented this in a great clip.  The Happiest Toddler on the Block  Our punishments need to be reasonable but unpleasant.  And consistent, consistent, consistent.