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From: greg@olivej.UUCP (Greg Paley)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: How to discipline short of spanking
Message-ID: <270@olivej.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Jan-85 13:43:50 EST
Article-I.D.: olivej.270
Posted: Wed Jan  9 13:43:50 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 06:24:28 EST
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Organization: Olivetti ATC, Cupertino, Ca
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I thought Ed Turner's article on discipline was excellent.  The
point about the necessity of being consistent cannot be overemphasized.
Some of the worst brats I've seen (excuse the expression, but I
don't know any other way to put it) have been the result of parents
who laugh at a particular offense at one moment and heavily punish
the same thing at another, or, alternately, who continually spout
a stream of empty threats.

I'm not going to go into the argument of whether or not spanking
is an effective means of discipline (we do it, but it takes a
major offense, potentially harmful either to the child himself
or someone else, to warrant it) but I have no hesitation in saying
that if you threaten to spank and then, despite this, the child
persists in whatever he shouldn't be doing, you have to go ahead
and carry out the threat.  

Otherwise the child loses all respect for you and your authority
and, worse, loses his self respect since it will appear that his
actions have no particular importance one way or the other.

	- Greg Paley