[Outback Porsche]

Young kids can't reason (it blows me away the amount of parents that think they can), a smack is all that's required to diffuse a bad situation. My kid were rarely smacked and never with anything but my hand. I figured that if I used my hand then I would know the exact measure of punishment. I was smacked with a cane or a ruler often and swore that I was never going to use an implement other than my hand. It wasn't something that I was fond of doing so if it was uncomfortable for me then one smack was probably enough.

I would sometimes count, never to more than three. If I started counting, kids would run. Sometimes the smack came at the count of one, sometimes at two, but always at three. I would only have to start counting to get their attention and a smack became extremely rare.

Depending upon the situation, sometimes I would say 'do that again so I can smack your bottom'. Then attempt to goad them into doing whatever it was I told them not to do. It would end when I received sufficient 'I don't want too' replies.

The key to it all was not making idle threats. We had well behaved kids from a very early age that had well established boundaries that were rarely crossed. That also meant that grounding punishments at a later age were also very rare and it probably hurt more to have internet access removed or the phone taken away for a few weeks, or when they started driving, to hand over their set of car keys.