Our four year old became a huge handfull recently, so my wife and I developed a system of consequences. He has a chart that goes from purple to red. Purple means he gets a reward for good behavior, and red means he gets a consequence. The first of these is a spanking with a short, ornate wooden spoon. We never spank him hard (we can't get power behind it even if we wanted to), but the psychological effect usually does the trick. He goes to the corner if he continues to misbehave, followed by what we call "totem poles" where he stands up straight with his arms out beside him for five minutes.


Boy, it straightened him up quick! He doesn't fear us, and we have a protection against disciplining in anger. Spanking isn't bad--it's how it's used. AP definitely crossed the line.

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