Effective Alternatives to Physical Punishment

While spanking has been shown to negatively impact bonding with parents, a positive approach ensures that, when it’s time to discipline your kids, they’ll be more receptive to your authority, not afraid of you. 

Here’s how you can respond to your child’s behavior instead of spanking: 

1. Choose appropriate, effective punishments. 
   If possible, choose a punishment that is a natural consequence of the misbehavior. If you find that a particular “punishment” does not seem to work even when applied consistently, it is not “punishing” for your child, and you should try another. 

2. Ignore misbehavior that is not harmful. 
   When you have all harmful behavior under control, you can gradually start to work on other annoying behaviors – one behavior at a time. 

3. “Time-Out” works best when used to prevent the child from getting rewarded for misbehavior. 
   Use this technique to remove the child from the room where other children are likely to provide praise, laughter, etc. Make sure to use it immediately and as unemotionally as possible. 

4. Rewarding a child’s good behavior is much more effective than punishing bad behavior. 
   Reward has the added advantage of helping a child feel good about himself; whereas punishment tends to make a child feel bad about himself and resentful toward you. 

Coach Benjamin Mizrahi. Educator. Learning Specialist. Family Coach. Father. Husband.   

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