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I plan on using time outs (silent treatment), grounding/taking things away (most effective for me growing up), and who knows but right now those are my two forms. My mom used to do a little Dawn in the mouth when we swore/backtalked/ect. and I HATED it and swore I would never do it, and I still can't use blue Dawn when doing dishes! ha

I'm not sure as they get older but right now it's redirection or taking toys away. I've never been grounded in my life so we won't go that route.

I got bar soap in my mouth one time. Yuck! My mom from time to time would give me the silent treatment- ignore me and not get things for me. I won't do that because I felt completely unloved and neglected.

I'll try timeouts, but not standing in a corner like what my dad with me. Taking away privileges was the worse, so I'll use that. I hated talking about what I did wrong/ how I dissappointed my parents because it was embarassing, but that was effective.

I also plan to use reward charts and special outings to hone in on the type of acceptable behavior that's desired.

I was spanked a lot! I won't go that route. Right now we're mostly doing calm downs/time outs in their rooms and taking away privileges. We do reward charts for good behavior.

So, one thing my parents did that was kind of funny was that they would make me do research papers or book reports about the behavior they wanted me to do/change. I was SO bookish and loved reading and writing so they thought that was a good way to get through to me. I really enjoyed going to the library and researching respect for your parents, haha! But I don't think it helped so I'm not sure I will do that one

DD is 6. When she's acting poorly I tell her to go to her room and sort out/ calm down/cheer up/take a breath until she's ready to rejoin the family. Thats about all I can bring myself to do, I hate punishment

When we were little my Mom would make us hold something up with our arms up over our heads (like a small box of toys). It was brutal and my arms would get so tired. It was very effective but I don't know that I'll do anything like that with my kids

Right now we do time outs and losing privileges (bedtime stories right now). It works with her personality.

I've heard people making their kids hold hands or face each other nose to nose for 5-10 minutes for fighting...i think that's so cute and my friend says it is very effective - her kids will work things out rather than do "nose to nose"

@sandy: haha my dad would say "in school we had to hold chairs over our heads!"

My parents definitely used corporal punishment - spanking and things like holding our hands up over our heads for periods of time to cause pain and discomfort. Pretty common for Korean households. They also IMMEDIATELY took away/threw away/broke anything my brother and I fought over - they had a zero tolerance policy for fighting over things. We never had money and my parents were super strict as a matter of course, so every day was like being grounded.

Of all those things, I will probably treat the fighting over things issue similarly. If you fight over it, its gone. DH and I generally don't think we will need to resort to physical punishment, but I don't think I can say for sure that I would never, ever spank, which I know has been a hot button issue on the Bee lately. I was a natural rule follower, so it didn't come up that much for me, but my brother always pushed against prohibited behavior so spanking and physical punishment was something my parents had to use a lot more for him because he was always doing life-threatening things like playing around with fire or really dangerous Jackass-like stunts as a young child (as in before the age of 10). I don't exactly know how I would handle a kid like my brother in a panicked moment like that because he literally set our house on fire once. But yeah, in general, DH and I believe talking and having thinking time to reflect on actions is more effective. I don't know about timeouts yet, because we're not there.

My mom was a screamer and both my parents were really big into guilt and emotional manipulation so I really want to NOT use those things, because for someone emotionally sensitive like me, it created a lot of resentment and insecurity - way more than any spanking I got.

So far I can still reason with my toddler. I'm not so naive to think this is how things will always be. But for now she's really behaved and a simple "we don't do that, that's not nice" has worked. I have no idea what we will do but I do know we won't be spanking.

All of this talk about soap makes me think of the soap poisoning scene from A Christmas Story! We'll probably try time out for as long as it works and move into taking away privileges/grounding.

My favourite punishment (lol) looking back was when I had my bedroom door removed for a week after I slammed it too many times. Coming home from school to no door was a shock, and I will absolutely use that on my kids. We had things taken away a lot (electronics, or even just going-out privileges). Effective, and I'll likely do the same.

@Synchronicity: haha! My parents took away my door for slamming it too many times too! Awesome punishment, very effective!(I didn't think so at the time of course )

@Turd Ferguson: ok that made me actually lol

Time outs have been our go to and work the vast majority of the time. Occasionally they lose toys or privileges. As they get older, I think it will evolve into losing more privileges or having to give up something.

I hope to use gentle methods and logical consequences - I'm big into the "you break it, you fix it" (objects, environments, feelings) and having children come up with their own consequences to fix what they have done.
I also plan to use a cool down spot time out. I have one in my classroom and it works really well. It isn't presented as a punishment but as a place to go when our feelings get too big. The kids respond really well to it - they know it's a place to help them and that they're not in trouble. I'll typically send them with an iPad (we work a lot on iPads) and they can take as long or as little as they feel they need before joining us. Because I only use it when kids are super emotional/angry/crying, they usually stay there a good 15 or 20 minutes because they appreciate the solitude.

All the punishment techniques my parents used I won't. I'll probably do time outs and take away of items. One thing I might do as LO is older is physical activity around the house. My aunt watched me for a while over the summer and she would make me pull weeds and do push ups. Lol. Pulling weeds was a nightmare so I might do something similar.

@farawayyama: ditto- we will use Love and Logic techniques with logical consequences.

We do timeouts/ cool downs and consequences/ rewards.
if I've asked them what they want to drink and they don't answer or say nothing and then I sit down to eat, I'm not going to stop my dinner and get up again just bc they now decided. Or if they're too tired (what my oldest says) to eat then they're too tired for dessert.

For anybody interested, this is a really great Janet Lansbury article about what makes an effective consequence, and why punishment really doesn't work if your goal is relationship and trust as opposed to just obedience. I've used these strategies (not perfectly...definitely not perfectly) with my students from age 1-10, and with my own toddler and they really work well.

http://www.janetlansbury.com/2013/07/truths-about-consequences/