Now for a positive experience:

Scenario: We are eating the Shabbat day meal. There is a 2 year old girl, Rachel, who is walking around and causing trouble. She is a sweet little girl, not talking much yet, but very intelligent. She understands exactly what her parents tell her. She walks up to the table, picks up a piece of bread, crumbles it in her hands, throws it on the floor and then looks up at her mother to see what kind of reaction she will get for her efforts.

“Rachel, I did not permit you to do this (??? ?? ????)” the mother says in hebrew. Her tone is serious but not angry. “Now that you threw the bread on the floor, please pick up each piece and bring it back to Imma”. Rachel saw that her mother had caught her red-handed and that she would have to clean up her mess. She went over, picked up one piece and brought it back to her mother. “Thank you very much Rachel for bringing me this piece” the mother said with a smile. “No please go back and bring me the other pieces”. With a big grin, Rachel went off to pick up the rest of the pieces, bringing them back to her mother one at a time, and receiving a smile and thankyou for each piece.

Lessons learned:

• If a child does something to test you (or something for their own amusement that they really should not have done) and you need to discipline them, screaming, yelling and threatening can be counter-productive. Instead, a firm tone and serious face is all that is needed to convey to the child that what they have done is not acceptable.
• Punishments do not need to consist of sending someone to their room or taking away privileges. Wherever possible, tie the punishment in to the act that was done. That way the child has it doubly-reinforced that what they did was not right.
• When everything is better again, give a smile, a hug.