You and your fiancé want to determine whether you are truly compatible before you get married and so have been discussing your ideas about parenting

Question

Your fiancé tells you that when he was a child, his parents used only one form of discipline — spanking — and because he seemed to turn out all right, that's how he plans to discipline his children. You, however, would prefer not to use physical punishment and, instead, want to rely more on reinforcement, time-out, and reasoning. How would you (1) explain these alternative parenting techniques to your fiancé, and (2) tell him some of your concerns about the use of punishment?
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A good answer will be similar to the following:
- Reinforcement is any action that increases the likelihood of the response that it follows. When parents use reinforcement, they reward the behaviors that they want children to perform more often — behaviors like studying and being polite. Parents may use praise as reinforcement.
- Time-out involves having a child who is misbehaving briefly sit alone in a quiet, unstimulating environment. Time out is punishing because it interrupts the child's ongoing activity and isolates the child from other family members, toys, and other rewarding stimulation. During time-out, both parent and child usually calm down. When time-out is over, the parent should talk to the child and explain why the misbehavior was not acceptable and what the child should do instead. Reasoning like this is effective because it emphasizes why a child was punished and how punishment can be avoided in the future.
- Research suggests that punishment is not a very effective way to change children's behavior. When punishment is used, children are told only what not to do. They don't learn new behaviors to replace those that were punished. Punishment also has some undesirable side effects. Children may become angry and upset when punished and that might interfere with their learning why they were punished. Also, children who are punished physically often imitate that behavior and become aggressive with siblings and peers. Furthermore, when physical punishment is condoned, there is an increased risk of child abuse.