Otherwise, I will raise my voice and the decibels will get louder. I will also use my “stare” power. If all this fails, I will smack with hand/flick depending on the situation. I do not own a cane and I hope I will not need to resort to any instruments. I belive that smacking with hand is better than instrument as at least I know I can control and could feel the pain in my hand when I do it.

To get their attention/give a stern warning after the voice raising fails sometimes I will take a ruler or the fly swatter or hanger and flick it on the wall or table.

Threats are used to. Threats that work extremely well is “sending them to the toilet”. For the lil one, the threat that works the best is, “mummy will put you to bed tonight instead of daddy”.

I find that at this age (5 above) kids start testing limit (how far can I go before kena punish?) and such mild approach although effective for that particular occasion does not discourage a repeat offense a week later. They forget easily, and I find myself repeating the same ‘tame’ threats every single day. Hubby says it makes me sound like a nagging mother whose kid does not take seriously. I hate hearing myself scream and yell at my kids.

My son at this age also start smart-alec talkback. One day, like Zara he ‘volunteered’ to go naughty room. Hubby blew his top as he felt that the boy was ‘mocking’ the punishment, like it was no big deal, and show no respect for me.

We decided then that some occasions like willful disobedience, rudeness to elders, lying, physical violence etc require serious punishment to avoid repeat. My FIL told us, just one whack is enough – ONE really hard whack. Otherwise, the punishment is easily forgotten, and the kid repeats the same offense next week.

We don’t use cane. Cane easily injures, even without much strength applied. If in bad mood, can easily lose control and result in abuse. This will lead to deep resentment and degil behaviour, develop stubborn response to pain. We also don’t use our hands as somebody said, hands is for ‘sayang’.

We use a wooden spatula. In the past year, we only had to whack my 6 year old son 3 times (lying abt school homework, roughly pushing and smacking his sister in a quarrel, rude to me). My 5yr old girl kena just once, for creating an embarassing scene in shopping centre bcos she did not get what she want). She kena from hubby when we got home. Since then she never dare do that again, only show sulky face, which we just ignore.

Now, whenever (after ONE warning) hubby or I start rattling about the kitchen drawer, they know we mean bisness and faster rush to obey or apologise. We don’t believe in ‘flashing’ the cane/spatula or constant yelling at kids. At this age they should understand what they are told, so no excuses. Our rule is once the spatula is out of the drawer, they will surely kena ONE really hard whack on the side of the thigh or buttock.

yes i smack… now using hands. hv not gone to buy a cane yet.

one more thing is, we must be firm at all times n mean what we say. (ie: 2 mins, means 2 mins, no kai-kai, means no kai-kai)

Like you, I use verbal threats, naughty room and rewarding him when he listened to me or does something nice. At his age (2+), sometimes verbal threats works, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t I have to use other approach.

I also used flicking before. But my flicking is so bad that each time I does it my boy will say ‘it’s fun mommy’. Duh..

Lately the method works best for us is to show my boy my angry face and I’ll tell him mommy don’t talk to naughty baby. *drumroll* it works wonder. He’ll be running after me, give me pecks on the cheeks and say sorry. 😛

I like the naughty school threat. Have to steal that idea from you and mom2ashley. 😛

love reading posts like this … parenting sure is a tough course!