Over at Summa Mamas, SmockMomma blogs about discipline at Mass.
I have absulutely nothing to add because I am truly brain dead on the subject. When I was a mother of two very well behaved children, I thought I knew all the answers. As the kids keep coming and as they get older, the more I realise I have even less answers. I also know I haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg because I have not raised teenagers yet. For this reason, I offer little advice, but prefer to listen. I can share what worked for me in certain sitiuations,but it varies in my own family from child to child.
It amazes me the older I get, how little I knew. I think I should have been a parent when I was 16. I knew everything then.
I *was* a parent at 16 . . . there's nothing as ruthlessly efficient as that to make you realize how clueless you really are!
Each child is an individual, the irreducible point. If I spank the youngest, he acts just as contrary and resentful and wounded as I did as a child. The oldest was stoically indifferent as a little scamp. Elsa feels betrayed. Mere gets hysterical. No, spanking doesn't work around here, but we're working with *my* Tribe. It may work for someone else's brood. I'm certainly no parenting expert.
It worked for four out of my five children: one required "early and frequent"--the other three required "rare."
But my oldest son was completely baffled by the whole concept: he did not connect the spanking with any of his attitudes or actions.
So we never made any attempts beyond the first misfire.
you might want to double check the hot link.