Food time, study time, outdoor play time may be nightmares for many parents. I initially tried to talk to them. Talking works many a times but not when it outweighs their likings. Invariably they would never remember the talks during lunch or dinner times. And then I found out the punishment and reward trick that works very well now for my home.

It may vary for different kid and different parents so keep trying the trick that works for your child.

My kids are a big fan of CID. So I served them food 30 minutes before the program started. As usual they were talking, laughing and least interested in eating their food.

I told them to finish their food before CID started, else they would not get to watch their favorite program.

To my pleasant surprise, the kids finished their food in 20 minutes on their own.

Next day again the same drama, so I rescheduled their lunch time to 30 minutes before when their program CID would start. Again the same rule to finish the food before the program started. Its now a month and I have no worries about lunch or food times anymore.

Seeing the success of this rule, I thought of extending it to disciplining other areas of my children’s life.

So I started looking for what they disliked most in terms of study. It was easy. They both do not like handwriting exercise. So any time they delay their study, do not want to study, write shabbily, are not paying attention then their punishment is to write 10 pages of handwriting exercise. It was not easy as they would start crying, complaining of the pain in their hands etc etc. But I was firm and in just 2 attempts they do not want to create any scene while studying at all.

So if you see I used punishment and prize to discipline them. It’s just a matter of finding out the most favorite and most dreaded things in the eyes of your child.

In my kids’ case, CID worked as a prize for finishing their food on time, whereas handwriting exercise as the punishment. Also if you have not noticed, in both the cases, their losing out is also a winning situation in the long term. If they do not finish food on time, their miss CID, which is also a good thing to keep them away from TV. And if they take the handwriting punishment, they improve their writing skill!

So punishment and rewards must be such that it hurts your child’s short term happiness but is actually good for them in the long run.