What about punishments. punishment is only the last resort to discipline, definition of punishment is predetermine penalty enforced for wrongdoing. Corporal punishment and other types of punishment should be left only as a last resort, and for direct disobedience and defiance, both of which you will end up having very few of if you follow these steps as much as you can. punishments teach the child cause and effect that all the decisions we're making life have consequences, and we need to think of them when making decisions. In our family, we like to set clear guidelines that are in tune with our parenting goals. more about this later in the course.

We like to set them for ourselves as parents and for our babies. As the children grow, we clearly explain the rules to the toddlers. They know why they shouldn't do certain things. Why this behavior is unacceptable? Then we proceed to read and know the consequences for misbehaving. When you set it up this way, a look is all the child will need to know what would come next, if he decided one way or another.

We will talk more about this later on in the course, just wanted to make it clear that punishment and discipline are not synonyms, nor are mutually inclusive. Nowadays, when you mentioned discipline, people tend to equate it with severe punishments, and already are picturing in their minds child abuse cases. I want to reiterate here, that this is not what we're talking about. Every action has a consequence, even in our lives as adults, and our children should be taught that principle in order to have successful and fulfilling lives.