Punish to teach, not to get even, and do it in sorrow because you care - nipping defiance in the bud:
Rule 4 of Aaron's Exercises for 10 Rules To Live By - all you need to know for parenting, communication, and everyday life
Aaron Noah Hoorwitz, Ph.D.
February 2007
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Why bother to learn about punishment?
Some people are opposed to the idea of punishment and aren't interested in learning more about it. This is probably a mistake.
If you are in agreement with the idea of punishment, then the ideas learned here will help you to do it more efficiently and more compassionately, with less sadistic feelings and with any unnecessary harm minimized.
If you are opposed to the idea of punishment, then you need to know that you utilize punishment anyway, without awareness, whether by accident or as a natural consequence to what others are doing to you, for example, when you ignore someone who keeps bothering you.
Since you are using it without awareness, you are probably using it inefficiently and in sadistic ways, causing unnecessary harm that you might prefer to avoid inflicting on others. Therefore, it behooves you to learn how to avoid being unnecessarily hurtful by understanding more about it.
This will make more sense to you and mean more to you later, after you've studied this paper on punishment. So when you've finished it, come back and read these comments again later.
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Contents - to help you learn, this paper is organized into three sections:
(1) a brief narrative to explain the ideas involved,
(2) problems for practice so that you can internalize the ideas and get ready to use them
(3) a summary of important points to remember
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Brief narrative
These are some principles of behavior management derived from the behavioral literature and research of the past century. It doesn’t include every point that might be relevant but it focuses on the most common problems in the disciplining of children.
Learning to utilize these principles is not just an academic exercise. They actually work, and they work well, but only if you learn them well enough to use them correctly. If you don’t learn them well enough, or if you use them incorrectly, then don’t expect them to work.
Minimize the side effects of punishment. Because punishment inflicts suffering, the suffering can become attached to whatever happens to be around, for example, the child’s bedroom if he’s sent to his bedroom as a punishment, or his homework if he’s being punished for not doing a good job with homework while the homework is right there in front of him. The result is that the bad feelings can be elicited by the homework or by the bedroom. This is not a great thing because it influences the child to have a negative attitude towards things that you’d rather he didn’t feel negative about, i.e., bedroom, bed, homework.
Therefore, if the child is misbehaving while doing homework, it’s not a great idea to use punishment right then and there if the suffering is going to rub off on whatever happens to be around. And when the suffering isn’t enough to change the behavior but enough to develop a negative attitude, then you’re spreading the negative attitude around to other things without any real advantage to compensate for this disadvantage. To try to control this side effect, it would be better to remove him to another room where he can be punished before he’s allowed the privilege to return to his homework again.
To summarize, the suffering from punishment can rub off on whatever happens to be around, so be careful with how you punish, separating the child from whatever you don’t want tainted with the feelings of suffering. Make it worth the suffering you cause by doing a good job of teaching a lesson.
Don’t punish in anger. If you punish while your obviously angry, or for revenge, they’ll feel that you’re doing it to get even, and not for their own good. Wait until you’re no longer angry before you punish so that you can feel sorry for the suffering that you’re inflicting on them. Create a separation between punishment and anger. This isn’t natural. It’s more natural for people to punish in anger and to get even. In our hearts we may all be sadists to some extent because it’s natural to take some sadistic satisfaction in the suffering of others when we think they deserve it. However, it makes things worse. It’s more effective to wait until you’re no longer angry before you punish so that you can do it as an expression of care and respect for the person you’re punishing, not as a sadistic act of vengeance.
Punish in sorrow. Point out that you’re sorry that they have to suffer but you’re hoping that the suffering will help them to make a better choice next time. If they respond by saying that you wouldn’t punish them if you were really sorry, say that you have to do it because if you let them get away with it, then you’re afraid that you’ll give them the idea that what they’re doing is okay, and if they keep doing that kind of thing, then they will pay for it big time by some kind of natural consequence, for example, getting beat up, going to jail, etc. Therefore, to avoid punishment is to do them a disservice and to be disrespectful. You’re only punishing them because you care about them and you’re doing it with respect. A way to put this into words is: I’m sorry for any suffering you’re feeling but I hope it helps you to become ready to make better choices in the future.”
Act quickly. To prevent yourself from becoming angry, act quickly, after only one or two warnings. For example, when you want your son to turn off the TV to get into his pajamas, or you want the kids to stop bouncing on the bed, give only one warning, two at most. If you have to keep repeating yourself and eventually raising your voice, it’s because they know you’re good for another 10 warnings before you’ll take any action. Consequences which follow the 10th warning only punish the 10th undesirable behavior, leaving the other 9 behaviors rewarded, which they got away with, so you can expect to see these misbehaviors again tomorrow.
Deciding whether to use natural, logical,or arbitrary consequences. To avoid being the “bad guy” all the time by scolding and punishing in order to try to save the child by plucking him to safety before he runs over a cliff, allow life to punish naturally when natural consequences are potent enough, safe enough, and immediate enough. For example, a natural consequence that might work is that dinner has been put away when your husband gets up from watching the ball game an hour after you’ve called him for dinner. It’s immediate, it’s not dangerous, and it’s potent if he’s hungry.
However, if the natural consequence isn’t immediate and certain or is too dangerous, then you might not want to use natural consequences. For example, if your child is riding his bike in the street when he’s not supposed to, it’s not a great idea to wait for a truck to hit him – although it’s a potent natural consequence, it’s not immediate and may take too long to happen and it’s too dangerous. Therefore, taking away the bike would be a “logical” consequence, logical in the sense that in some way it’s connected to the crime and might remind him of the natural consequence. Hence, it has the appearance of being fair.
But if he didn’t care about having the bike taken away, then a more “arbitrary consequence would be necessary to make sure that it is more potent or powerful, in other words, to make sure it makes him suffer enough to think twice about it next time. Arbitrary consequences are much more plentiful or available in the child’s environment, so they can be used to inflict the right amount of suffering and can be used to make the punishment as immediate and certain as possible. However, they are possible to use only because the adult has greater power over the child, power that is being exploited, and this is obvious to the child, so it may seem more unfair to the child. That is why logical and natural consequences give the appearance of punishing to teach, not to get even.
These are simply the advantages and disadvantages of arbitrary, logical, and natural consequences. The particular situation and your analysis of what kinds of consequences are possible will have to determine which of the three types you use.
Ignoring. Ignoring, or withdrawing attention, is both a logical and a natural consequence. In other words, it is only natural to get out of the way when someone keeps whacking at you. It is the only form of punishment used by those who refuse to exploit their greater power to manipulate others because it is a “timing out” of oneself rather than “timing out” the child. Ignoring isn’t the same as the silent treatment or pouting, which is a passive way to punish in anger and has the same negative effects of punishing in anger. Ignoring can be extremely potent when others desire your attention, but ignoring is foolish to try using as a deliberate technique of behavioral management when others don’t care about your attention or if their attention is absorbed by something else.
Make the punishment potent enough. The most severe punishments can be reserved for acts of outright defiance or acts that you never want repeated. But for everyday behavior that is undesirable, mild yet potent punishments are enough to teach others to take responsibility for their choices without creating fear and resentment. However, they shouldn’t be so mild that they are only an annoyance and not enough to deter future misbehavior. Impotent punishments are disrespectful to those you punish because while inflicting some small degree of suffering, they don’t inflict enough suffering to discourage and stop undesirable behavior. Therefore, the suffering that is inflicted is wasted and you’re inflicting it for no good purpose. It also causes resentment in the child.
For example, it is not a punishment to “time-out” a child by putting him in a chair in the corner if he squirms, stares out the window, plays with a thread in his pocket, and keeps getting you to carry on a conversation. He is playing more than he is being punished and thirty minutes of this is a vacation compared to the suffering of thirty seconds of boredom from looking at a blank wall while sitting motionless like a statue.
To punish with potency, you need to figure out what is potent by observing the child to determine what matters and what doesn’t matter. Maybe you will need to take away those things that really matter in order to have an impact. Maybe he needs to lose something he loves, like a special toy, or a game, or a privilege, or a snack. If you feel sorry for the suffering that you’re inflicting because the suffering is visible, by his tears and cries, then take comfort in knowing that you’ve found something that’s potent. You’re using something that matters. And if it matters this much, then it has a chance of helping him to make more responsible choices in the future.
Sacrifice time and resources. Sacrifice time, resources, energy, and money to assure the potency of punishment as an investment that will pay off by saving you from greater expenses. For example, be prepared to leave the park when the child won’t listen right away about climbing down from the tree, even though you only just got to the park and want to be there as much as the child does. Be prepared to pay for the ice cream sundaes without eating them and getting up and leaving the restaurant in order to punish the child for not listening to your warning to stop misbehaving.
Even though you’re sacrificing time, fun, money, energy, etc, it’s an investment that will pay off because the child will learn that you mean business. It will make sure that when you give a warning, that warning can be taken to the bank. The warning means something. And they’d better listen to it. Therefore, look for opportunities to make sacrifices like this. They are great investments, you only have to make these investments once in a while, and children need to be reminded every so often of how much you’re willing to do to make sure that you mean what you say.
Don’t squander resources by overpunishing. An example of overpunishing is grounding a teenager for a month when one night might be enough. Doing it for a whole month makes the punishment unavailable for you to use again immediately and generates hostility, and that hostility can generate further undesirable behavior. For example, the additional misbehavior that gets generated is that the child may sneak out the window because a month of grounding is just too long to wait and he’s angry about you being so controlling. The same goes for the example of taking away the bike for riding in the street. Taking it away for a month, or even a week, makes it unavailable to you as a resource to use right away and it is too long to be sure it’s going to continue to inflict suffering. The more time that goes on without you being right there to assure that suffering is occurring, the more chance that the child will lose interest in the bike and become more interested in something else.
Therefore, increasing punishments by adding time to them generally makes them less rather than more potent. Beware of sending the child to his room for a long time, sitting in a chair for more than a few minutes, grounding for too many days, taking something away for more than a day or two, etc. It’s usually important for you to be hovering around in order to control the infliction of suffering, in order to be sure that the punishment continues to be potent and that that child hasn’t become distracted and amusing himself some other way. Therefore, the shorter it is, the better it is for you from a management perspective.
Don’t hit. There’s a number of reasons to avoid hitting, especially that it provides a bad example, but these disadvantages have been countered with a number of advantages. Rather than try to resolve the issue on the basis of these pros and cons, get it through your head that you should avoid hitting whenever possible because it’s simply too sloppy and inexact. It’s an uncreative form of discipline that almost always overpunishes or underpunishes: that is, you almost always don’t hit hard enough or you end up hitting too hard. It’s almost impossible to get it just right. And since underpunishing lets them get away with things, which encourages misbehavior, and overpunishment leads to resentment and further misbehavior, you’re left with the fact that hitting generally causes rather than reduces misbehavior. It’s just too sloppy of a technique. It’s just not very smart to use it.
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Problems for Practice
1. Whenever Travis does his homework in the kitchen, mom sends him to the same chair in the dining room if he doesn’t pay attention or stamps his foot or makes faces. The bad feelings he has while he’s being punished will rub off on something, and makes him feel bad about it. What will they rub off on?
a. The kitchen.
b. His homework.
c. The chair in the dining room.
2. When should you let life punish someone naturally?
a. When it punishes just enough but not too much.
b. When it takes too long to do it.
c. When it punishes too much.
3. Which one is a logical punishment?
a. Getting timed-out for swearing.
b. Getting the bike taken away for riding it in the street.
c. Getting a broken arm from hitting the dresser when bouncing on the bed.
4. Which one is a natural punishment?
a. Getting a favorite toy taken away for riding the bike in the street.
b. Getting ignored for swearing.
c. Not allowed to go near mom’s bed because of bouncing on it.
5. If you punish while you’re mad and yelling at the same time, how will the other person feel?
a. That you’re punishing him for his own good to teach him a lesson.
b. That you’re getting even with him for what he did.
c. That you’re being fair.
6. If you’re mad when you want to punish, what’s the best thing to do?
a. Go ahead and punish while you’re mad, because it’s the natural thing to do.
b.Don’t punish and don’t let them know that you’re mad.
c. Say that you’re mad or walk away, but don’t punish while you’re mad.
7. What should you say when somebody is suffering from a punishment?
a. I warned you that you’d be sorry and now you’ve got what you deserved.
b. I’m sorry you’re suffering but I hope this helps you to remember to make
better choices.
c. This hurts me more than it hurts you.
8. Mom tells Evan to get in his pajamas because it’s time to get ready for bed, and he says okay, but he keeps sitting in front of the T.V. Why?
a. He knows that mom will punish him if she has to tell him again.
b. He knows that mom will warn him another10 or12 times before she punishes.
9. When the kids bounce on mom’s bed, she tells them to stop, but a minute later, they’re bouncing again. She tells them to stop and they do, but a few minutes later she has to warn them again. She warns them again and again, until she finally punishes them by sending them to bed. But the next day, they bounce on her bed again. She doesn’t understand, because she punished them. Explain to her.
a. She should have waited for life to punish them naturally.
b. Only the last bounce got punished. All the rest were fun and rewarding.
c. The punishment wasn’t strong enough.
10. If you punished Evan for riding in the street by taking his bike away, he’d probably lose interest in his bike and start to care more about other things if you
a. took it away for an hour.
b. took it away for a day.
c. took it away for a week.
11. What happens when you punish more than you need to by making a person stay in her room for a week.
a. You make the child suffer the right amount and teach a good lesson.
b. It pays off in better behavior because the child knows you mean what you say.
c. You have to wait a week before you can use this again as a punishment
and the child might lose hope and sneak out the window.
12. Mom and the kids were out back playing ball, but Travis began to talk back to mom and refuse to do as he was told, so she punished him by sending him inside where he was only allowed to watch T.V. What’s wrong with this punishment?
a. Mom shouldn’t allow him to watch T.V.
b. Mom shouldn’t make him go inside.
c. Mom shouldn’t punish him just for refusing to do as he’s told and talking back.
13. Which child suffers the most?
a. The one who gets a light slap on the wrist.
b. The one who stands in the corner bored and doing nothing for three minutes.
c. The one who is sent to her room for an hour where she plays in bed.
14. Every time the child is sent to her room, she tries to get out, so her father puts his chair against the door, and sits there and guards it while he reads a book. Why should he go to so much trouble?
a. He shouldn’t go to so much trouble. He’s just giving her attention.
b. Parents should go to this much trouble every time they punish a child.
c. The child will learn that he means business and will listen to him next time.
15. When a child refuses to do as he’s told or does something you don’t want him ever to do again, how much should he suffer?
a. A strong punishment is needed.
b. A small punishment is enough to remind him of the rules.
c. A reminder is enough. He doesn’t need to be punished.
16. Evan’s punishment for hitting Travis is to dry 5 dishes and to put them away, but he refuses to do it. How can he be made to accept his punishment?
a. Tell him that if he doesn’t do the 5 dishes, then he’ll have to do 10 dishes.
b. Tell him that if he doesn’t do the 5 dishes, then he’ll have to wash the floor.
c. Tell him that if he doesn’t do the 5 dishes, then you’ll take his favorite toy.
17. Can you usually make a person suffer the right amount by hitting?
a. No, it’s too sloppy because it usually causes too much or too little suffering.
b. No, it never causes enough suffering.
c. No, it always causes too much suffering.
Answers: 1. c, 2. a, 3. b, 4. b, 5. b, 6. c, 7. b, 8. b, 9. b, 10. c, 11. c, 12. a, 13. b, 14. c, 15. a, 16. c, 17. a
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Practice saying that you’re sorry that the other person is suffering from a punishment and that you hope the suffering helps them to make a better choice next time. Example: Travis is about to be timed-out and says, “But I hate to be timed-out, it’s so boring. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard.”
You say: Travis, I'm sorry that you'll feel so bored, but I hope that it helps you to remember to make a different choice the next time you feel like hitting.
1. Evan couldn’t keep his hands to himself in the store and broke something. Now he has to pay for it with his own money. “But now I have hardly any left,” he says.
You say: ___________________________________________________
2. Sarah was told to stop bouncing on the bed, but she didn’t listen. She hit a dresser and banged her knee. She cries, “The dresser is in the way. It hurt me.”
You say: ___________________________________________________
3. Grandpa tells long stories with a lot of detail. You warned him that everybody would get bored and walk away. But he didn’t believe you and he kept on telling long stories until everyone left. Now he complains, “Why did they all walk away. Don’t they know I feel lonely?”
You say: ___________________________________________________
4. The vaccuum cleaner salesman loses his job because he wouldn’t stop drinking on the job. He‘s worried about how to pay his rent and complains to you that life’s not fair, because he just keeps losing one job after another.
You say:
Answers:
1. I’m sorry you have to lose your money but I hope it helps you to remember to make a different choice next time.
2. I’m sorry that your knee hurts but I hope it helps you to remember what can happen when you decide to bounce.
3. I’m sorry you feel so lonely but I hope it helps you to remember what can happen if you decide to keep talking.
4. I’m sorry you’re worried and that you’re suffering, but maybe this suffering can help you to decide to do something different about drinking.
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Summary of important points to remember about punishing
1. The suffering from punishment can rub off on whatever happens to be around, so be careful with how you punish. Make it worth the suffering you cause by doing a good job of teaching a lesson.
2. You can let life punish someone naturally if the natural punishment doesn’t take too long to happen and isn’t too terrible. Don’t try to save them from the natural punishment by nagging and punishing because it makes you look like the bad guy.
3. A punishment that’s logically connected to a misbehavior teaches a lesson about life, like natural punishments, even though you can do it only because you’re bigger.
4. Punishments that aren’t natural or logical don’t seem as fair. It’s obvious that you can use them only because you have more power. But there are a lot more of them, so it’s easier to find one that makes a person suffer just the right amount.
5. When somebody is suffering from a punishment, say you’re sorry that they’re suffering and that you hope it helps them to remember to make a better choice next time. Don’t punish while you’re mad because they’ll think you’re doing it to get even with them and won’t believe it’s for their own good.
6. Act quickly. Catch and punish misbehavior early before it gets you angry. Punish after one or two warnings, so that they listen to your warnings. Punishing the last misbehavior in a long chain of misbehavior only punishes the last one.
7. Make sure that the punishment really makes the other person suffer. If it does, a short punishment is enough. If it doesn’t hurt enough, the hurting is wasted.
8. Use strong punishments for refusing to do as they’re told or for serious misbehavior that you don’t want to ever see repeated. But for the kinds of misbehavior that can be expected a lot of the time, small punishments are usually enough to remind a person of the rules. If it isn’t enough, make it a little stronger.
9. Give up your time or energy or money to make sure they suffer enough to teach them they better listen to you the next time. It pays off, so it’s worth the trouble.
10. Don’t waste your time or energy or money by punishing too much. It causes them to lose hope or to lose interest in what you took away from them.
11. If they refuse to accept a punishment, you can punish this refusal by taking away something that’s in your control until they do accept their first punishment.
12. Don’t hit. It’s too sloppy. It almost always punishes too much or too little. That’s why it causes misbehavior instead of stopping misbehavior.
