Many children feel guilty or bad when they are punished. Punishments should tell a child they made a mistake. Punishment should never communicate that a child "is a mistake." For this reason alone it is very important to acknowledge and reward children more than they are punished. Caution: Criticism, sarcasm and humiliation are punishing behaviors, and they are the worst and least effective forms of discipline. Punishment is also not effective when it is excessive, coercive or the result of power struggles. These forms will usually produce immediate compliance, but they do not result in a lasting positive response. In fact abuse, coercion and power struggles can create oppositional, defiant, abusive and antisocial behavior in children. Physical punishment is not very effective if you end up doing it a lot, and it usually teaches children that violence is a solution and one way to get what you want. Using physical punishment on children who also happen to be physically abusive will usually result in children hurting each other when you are not around. It is not wise to give children homework as a punishment. The consequence may turn out that your child will resent homework and studying. School and school work is hard enough and sometimes a child's failure in school is punishment enough. Giving homework to improve a child's grades is better than giving them homework for being rude.

Power struggles and coercion take place whenever you threaten a child or give that child a choice that will result in a punishment if the child does not comply. "If you don't do what I tell you, then you will spend the rest of the day in your room" is a typical example of a coercive power struggle. There is a winner and a loser during all power struggles. Arguments are the most common power struggles. While some power struggles are necessary to keep children safe from harm, power struggles over minor disagreements are questionable. You should stop your child from running into the street but you can't force a child to eat their corn. Children raised through repeated power struggles usually become stronger and just plain stubborn later in life. The best way to avoid coercion and a power struggle is to set up rules, be clear about your expectations and then establish the consequences for breaking the rules ahead of time. Once a child knows the rules and what is expected, punishment is not coercive but rather a predictable and avoidable consequence. The greatest problem with punishment is the tendency for children to try to avoid or escape punishments. Deception, lying and denial are common ways that children try to avoid and escape punishment.

Finally, there is a risk if you punish you child too much and too often. Many children will begin to avoid, escape and disconnect from their parents and authority figures. Children will often retaliate when they feel mistreated, hurt or emotionally injured by punishment. They may take it out on their parents, other children and even animals. One way that children stop feeling punished is to get angry or stop caring about the people who punish them. Children like this will begin to think. "Bring it on. You can't hurt me."
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