Giving your kids the ultimatum for their actions may bring about a good outcome in the long run. According to Parenting.com, punishing was found as to have been the most effective discipline strategy for kids based on a study.
Psychologists from The School of Medicine at Washington University found that punishments worked better in bringing about positive behaviors compared with granting rewards.
The participants in the study were either given rewards or punishments after making certain choices. The study's results indicate that most people tend to repeat the choice of action they've made after having received rewards rather than punishments.
"Our study showed that such feedback does not have to be harsh, since it appears that we tend to react in the same manner to any amount of negative feedback," said lead researcher Dr. Jan Kubanek.
He added, "From an evolutionary perspective, people tend to avoid punishments or dangerous situations. Rewards, on the other hand, have less of a life-threatening impact."
Kubanek and her team's study findings were published in the journal, "Cognition."
Kubanek further shared, "Objectively, you'd think that winning 25 cents would have the same magnitude of effect as losing 25 cents, but that's not what we find."
"The question of how rewards and punishments influence behaviour has occupied psychologists for over 100 years. The difficulty has been devising effective tasks to probe that question. We used a simple approach that reveals dramatic differences in the way people respond to different types of feedback," said Kubanek's co-researcher, Richard Abrams, according to Inquisitr.
Abrams is a psychologist at Washington University.
However, parents may want to think twice before spanking their kids as a way to punish them. An author of an article published in Familyeducation.com revealed that spanking is not a good method to use to discipline kids because of the following reasons:
1. It promotes violence. Violence is deemed as a negative version of carrying out resolution for conflicts.
2. Spanking inflicts physical and emotional pain. Once damage has been done, it'll be hard to make things right.
3. Spanking puts parents' emotional well-beings at risk.
4. Spanking makes kids powerless. As pain is inflicted on kids, they'll feel as if they have no power to improve things in their lives.
5. Spanking equals to disrespectfulness.
6. Spanking violates trust and evokes insecurity.
7. Spanking is a hindrance to bringing about effective communication.
Advocacy for positive discipline among kids has been widespread as well. According to Supernanny.co.uk, positive discipline is defined as "parenting in a warm, kind and respectful way with fair, firm boundaries and relevant, reasonable consequences."
