Parenting without Punishment Campaign

Advocates of corporal punishment often differ in terms the conditions for which it should be applied.  Some believe that corporal punishment is acceptable so long as it is carried out calmly and accompanied by explanations (i.e. not out of anger).   Some reserve it for serious offences only (although what constitutes as ‘serious’ is often left to personal judgment), while others would not hold back from hitting their children even for the smallest misconduct.

One of the common conditions voiced by rational-sounding parents is to use corporal punishment only as the ‘last resort.’  In other words, hitting children is justifiable if one has exhausted ALL other means.  And other means often include reasoning, scolding, threatening, bribing, etc,.  Now, here is the danger …

Most of the time when one reaches the point of having to exercise the ‘last resort,’  one is tired, frustrated, exasperated, or possibly desperate from trying out various other methods that failed.  One loses his or her cool, and tend to punish one’s child out of a heightened emotional state such as anxiety or anger.    The result is clearly undesirable.

What if you replaced corporal punishment from being the ‘last resort’ to being a ‘non-option’?  In other words, there is no fall back.  When all the methods of discipline that you currently know don’t seem to work, you simply seek out new alternatives that you have not considered before.  

Now, giving up the ‘security’ from having a last option requires courage.  But often, we need to give up the old to experience the new.  Will you be courageous enough to open yourself to a new world of positive parenting experience that is free from the negative consequences of punishment?