Want to know a secret about punishment?
It requires constant escalation.
In order to maintain the temporary effect of controlling behaviour, the punishment, or threats of punishment, must constantly be ramped up. we who had the experience of starting out with popping a tiny hand escalate to smacking a chubby little leg, then paddling a small bottom. Over time, as our children’s needs which have been driven underground emerge in ever-increasing behavioural issues, we found out often they the controllers are resorting to yelling and threats and physical punishment more and more often.
We who have experienced the use punishment-based parenting approaches other than physical punishment find that they must escalate and escalate to keep us under ‘control.’ Behaviour charts, time-outs, grounding, and removing privileges are some examples of non-physical punishment-based behaviour we have experienced. While these behaviour modification techniques may be less painful our child within physically, they still didn’t address the underlying needs being communicated by the behaviour and often are as destructive to the parent/child relationship.
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