Children developmentally are impulsive and lack the emotion regulation and executive functioning capabilities of adults over the age of 25. We cannot expect them to learn like adults do. When a child misbehaves, often times it is out of their control. They are not making conscious choices to act “bad.” So the old-school method of punishing a “bad” behavior are less-than-effective. What punishment (particularly spanking and corporal punishment) really do, is they tend to make the punished (e.g. the child) motivated to hide their behavior from the punisher (e.g. the parent, caregiver, teacher, etc.). This happens because the punishment induces a deep sense of shame in the child, and the child will do anything to avoid the negative feeling of shame. One quick example of this: when I worked in a public middle school running emotional and social skills groups, I observed one of my students getting in trouble frequently for wearing earbud headphones in the hallways. Students are not allowed to wear their earbuds to listen to music unless it’s a designated relaxation time during their study hall. This student, instead of complying and putting away the headphones, began to wear a hooded sweatshirt so that the headphones were concealed. I got to know this student and found out that he was not a trouble-maker at all. He was regulated by listening to music in the halls to survive the overwhelming, chaotic sensory environment. Getting detention for wearing headphones just provoked him to hide the headphones. This is how ineffective other forms of punishment are with children and adolescents. At home, the child typically becomes fearful of the punisher/caregiver and just hides bad (and sometimes good!) behavior from that caregiver. Spanking hurts your relationship with your kids. Parent management training can help you to identify effective, efficient strategies for encouraging wanted behaviors in your kids, and discouraging unwanted behaviors. You will see better results faster, and reduce the risk of traumatizing your kid. Isn’t that epic?