Most effective means of disciplining a child - Essay Example

It simple term, discipline teaches children to follow rules and this sometimes involve some form of punishments such as time-outs and spanking. The issue of discipline may sound straightforward, but many parents are greatly frustrated at one time when it comes to choosing the effective means of disciplining their children. This is because parents always endeavor that their children be respectful, respectful, and grow up as adults who are well-behaved as none of the parents wish to be accused of raising spoiled children (Kalat, 2014).

Therefore, the paper compares and contrasts spanking and time-outs with the view of providing parents with some insights on the effective means of disciplining children. It gives the advantages and disadvantages of using these means of discipline on the child and tries to shed more light on effective discipline technique and barriers to good behavior among children. According to Arnall and Elicksen (2008), the discipline technique that a parent chooses will largely depend on the kind of inappropriate behavior that the child displays, the child's temperament, the age of the child, and the parenting style.

Time-out is one the frequently used techniques when it come to disciplining and directing the behavior of children. This technique works best when a particular rule has been violated and with children between the age of 2 and 5 years. However, it can also be used in the entire childhood and some steps must be followed for it to work. Because it works best when particular rule are violated, rules must be set ahead of time and decision must be made and explained to the children on the behaviors which will attract punishment.

The person or the parent using this technique then chooses a time-out spot which is usually a boring place devoid of distractions such as a chair. The parent then begins the time-out by giving the child a few warnings and sending him/her to the time-out place if he/she repeats the bad behavior. The parent then sets a time limit for the child once he/she sits quietly on that spot as this will help the child to know when the time out ends. This is usually 1 minute for every year of the age of the child, which means the number of minute’s increases as the child grows.

When these time ends, the parent allows the child to go back to his normal activities whether it is reading or playing. Some of the advantages of time-outs are that it invites little adult emotion, limit behaviors of children; simple to do, increases consistency, assists parents in calming themselves down and is transferable among care-givers. Despite, these numerous advantages, this technique is not always the effective means of disciplining children as it only attains short term goals of preventing misbehavior.

Perhaps, it is sometimes the most controversial technique as it fails to teach co-operation or problem solving skills, invites power struggles, incite resentment, anger, and frustration as well as promoting retaliation and rebellion. To a larger extent it discourages parental attachment, increases sibling animosity, encourages the perceptions that time-out is a negative punishment, and fails to recognize the uniqueness among children (Kalat, 2014). As a result of these numerous disadvantages, several parents agree that sometimes spanking is the effective means of disciplining children.

Majority of parents think that spanking is effective, not because it was the