When guiding children towards positive behaviour and learning, parents wish to promote a healthy attitude that encourages children to think before they act as well as learn self-control. Disciplining allows a child to understand what he or she did wrong, gives ownership of the problem, provides solutions to address it and leaves the child’s dignity intact. Punishment on the other hand is not the ideal solution for controlling unacceptable behaviour because it is only a temporary solution and fails to achieve the long-term goal of inculcating self-control in children. Most importantly any strong penalization can hurt a child’s self-esteem.

Discipline is not only believed but has also proven to bring about a positive change in individuals. However there is need for greater understanding of the concepts of discipline and punishment.

Disciplining is usually considered positive in our culture and can be used in many ways to address different situations. For example, teachers in school are expected to maintain discipline in the classrooms since that is also a major expectation of parents sending their children to school. When used in the context of self-discipline, the word refers to the ability of focusing all of the energy, attention and abilities towards achieving one’s desired goals. Children may at times require adult assistance in organizing time and materials and developing certain skills and techniques for accomplishing personal goals. Disciplining in this way gives a feeling of self-achievement and satisfaction to the child.

Punishment refers to administering a negative stimulus (such as spanking a child) in order to contain undesired behavior. Many parents believe that punishing kids never lets them forget their mistake, and they often try to curb undesired behaviours in children through administering punishment. In many cases this holds true and children do tend to remember their behaviours for which they have been punished. Such severe measures have however proven to be psychologically detrimental for children’s growth and development and can lead to any extreme reaction such as a very low self-esteem, lack of confidence or rebellious attitudes. In one of its worse forms children end up being resentful about their own selves, against controlling adults or against other people in general. Moreover, punishment creates regret in children. They hate the experience of the incident in which they were punished and start hating the authority of their parents, teachers or peers. In many cases a child who has been punished too much grows with a high dependency on other individuals and no faith in his or her own abilities.

Discipline is not based on any kind of force or coercion but it can be positive or negative. However, negative discipline cannot be taken as punishment as its goal is the same as positive discipline - both kinds deal with training the child. For example, a child crosses the road himself and the father asks him to cross the road with an adult next time. If the child repeats the same act, the father scolds him. This is an example of negative discipline when the child is being taught about road safety so that he is safe from accidents. This type of disciplining clearly differs from punishment, because through punishing children learn conformity by force and not by their free choice. The great American physicist Albert Einstein once said “If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for rewards then we are a sorry lot indeed”. It is important for parents and caregivers to understand that as a result of harsh treatment even if children do agree to comply with their wishes the effect is not going to be long lasting.