Psychologist Tobin Hart, author of The Secret Spiritual World of Children, states that children have ways of knowing that are outside of any ritual or training. This includes a sense of love, compassion, awe and wonder, with moments of wisdom concerning what it means to be alive. Hart is co-founder of the Georgia-based non-profit ChildSpirit Institute, which studies the spiritual life of children.

Parents often use the words ‘discipline’ and ‘punishment’ interchangeably when they are trying to correct undesirable behaviour in children. The two terms, however, mean very different things and they have different outcomes for children and their parents. 

Punishment: Essentially, punishment is about controlling children’s behaviour through power, control and fear. “I better not catch you doing that again!” is a common thing we tell children when we are threatening punishment. 

Punishments can be: 

Physical: such as spanking, putting a child in a time out or withholding something like food or the internet 
Emotional: such as calling a child names (stupid, lazy . .), making them feel small or withholding love and affection from them. 
Punitive: not being able to go somewhere or play with friends. 

While punishments do seem to work in the short term to stop undesirable behaviour in children, they are problematic in...