"Thrash came the stick on your back; you never even realized what happened when another blow came your way." Your age: 6 years, your crime: eating chocolates without asking your mom.

Those were the days when the smallest of mistakes were solved by the cane believing that a little beating did no harm and the child would learn from it and not repeat it again. "Don't spare the rod and spoil the child" was the belief then. Physical punishments in the form of hitting, beating or making the child kneel down on the floor, stand with the hands up and standing in the sun were common in our childhood.

Aditi Korgoankar, Counseling Psychologist says, "Physically punishing is been a part of child rearing in India. Hitting the child is a form of negative reinforcement in which an unfavorable action is followed by an unfavorable outcome."

Today however the idea of physically hitting the child as a part of disciplining the child is losing its relevance. In fact hitting the child is frowned upon, psychologists also agree to the view that hitting the child is not going to help the child in the long run.

Here are some of the Negatives of Physical Punishments:

These are some of the prolonged effects of repeated hitting the child.

• Lead to Aggression in children: Because they are hit when young, children then consider hitting and beating to be a part normal interaction and hence tend to be more aggressive with other kids.
• No Positive outcome: Young children do not connect their action with the consequence, so many times even after they get hit, they do not realize what they were hit for. So has the punishment has no real outcome other than hurt.
• Physical wounds: Extreme beating and prolonged exposure to strict physicalpunishments leave physical wounds as well as injury in many cases.
• Severing relationships: The sight of a parent hitting is not easily forgotten by a sensitive child. So even later in life the relation
• Leaves Scars for life: If kids are regularly beaten in their childhood especially in presence of others they lose their self confidence early on. This leads to issues of self esteem later on in life. Children may also hold grudge against parents and have difficult relations with them.

Better discipline methods:

Time out zones

Hitting and punishing kids younger than 2 years is pointless. They have no ability to see the relation between the action and the consequence so they learn nothing after a spanking or beating. They feel the pain of the spanking but learn nothing from it. So for these kids, it is important that parents make it clear what is good and what is bad and even set a good example themselves.

After they have done something wrong they should be sent to a timeout zone, where they sit till they are calmer and are in a mood to make amends. Generally the time spent in the timeout zone increases by one minute every year of the child.

Establish who the boss is

After kids are older from 3 years and above, they can understand the link between the action and the consequence so this is the time when you can lay rules and decide what happens if they are broken. Remember to discuss why there are some rules and remind for few times before you punish them for not adhering to them.

The earlier you establish that who makes the rules and they have to follow, easier is it for them to accept it. If you are too flexible at the early age, your child will not take your word very seriously.

Praise when they are right

Your child does need you to tell him when he is wrong but he needs you more to tell you when he is going the right thing. For example you always tell your child to share his toys so when he actually does that, praise his efforts. This way you are reinforcing the right behavior by praising it.

Be consistent

While you make rules, remember they will only work if you are consistent with them. That is you do not reward the action at one instance and then criticize it later on. You also need to repeat the rules quite few times for children to remember them.

Don't make hollow threats

Remember to do what you say for your word to be taken seriously. That is if you have threatened to not allow your kid to watch their favorite cartoon if he does not clean his room, make sure you do it. So make sure you do not threaten something dramatic that will be difficult to follow.

Face the consequences

Age 9 onwards, there is need to allow kids to learn through their mistakes, that is face the natural consequences. Here for example, you will not nag your child to complete his homework but let him see the consequence and learn from it so that he doesn't repeat it.

This type of learning is very effective as the kid generally learn after the first time itself but if you see that your kid is not realizing the consequences then you need to step up and explain it to him.

Teens need rules too

When the kids turn to be teenagers, you expect lot of disobeying the rules and acts of rebellion. But disciplining your teen does not have to be so difficult either. Teens still need parents to lay the rules so discuss the ground rules like- how much TV, internet use, how much pocket money and how late can they return home. If you find them breaking rules, take away some of their privileges like taking away the MP3 player or the internet time.

Don't give confusing signals

One moment you shout and scream at the child, next moment you offer him chocolates. The result the child feels that he needs to misbehave to get your attention and love. When you have a valid reason to punish your child, you need to be firm and make the decision. Unless you are firm while doing so, the child will feel like he can still compromise and make you bend. To read more about Discipline your child the right way! by Medimanage.com