THE EFFECTS OF DISCIPLINE RESPONSES IN DELAYING TODDLER MISBEHAVIOR RECURRENCES

To compare the effectiveness of maternal punishment (e.g., time out, s panking), reasoning, and the combination of the two, 40 volunteer moth ers recorded their responses to incidents of toddler fighting and diso bedience in a structured diary for 4 weeks. Punishment frequency corre lated positively with misbehavior frequency, but non-punishment respon ses correlated even more strongly with misbehavior. The mean delay unt il a misbehavior recurrence was significantly longer after a punishmen t-reasoning combination (e.g., 20.0 waking hours until a fighting recu rrence) than after punishment alone (9.3 hrs.), reasoning alone (8.8), or other responses (9.4), p < .001. The results are discussed in term s of cognitive developmental and behavioral perspectives of parental d iscipline, Corporal and non-corporal forms of punishment are also comp ared.