Punishment should be a tool that supports the broader goal of discipline.  Unfortunately, because punishment is the easiest and simplest tool to use in the parenting toolbox, parents tend to over-rely on it to shape their children’s behavior.  When this happens, despair is likely to settle into both your child’s heart and your own, as you find yourself seeking more and more convincing forms of punishment.  The ten-minute time-out becomes an hour-long time-out.  A week-long grounding becomes a month-long grounding.  A spank with the hand becomes a lash with a belt, and so forth.  Why does this happen?  It happens because punishment fails to teach your child the root causes for his behavior, which generally are traceable to his emotions.  Your child needs to understand his emotions in order to tame them and thus behave in healthier ways.  This is why the NEAR sequence is emphasized at Apprenticeship Parenting. That being said, punishment is still an important parenting tool.  But how can you make it effective while avoiding the above scenarios of escalation?  The following are some basic principles to consider:

• Remember that punishment is a justice issue—you want to use it to help your child develop a sense of right-ness, not simply to make him feel badly.
• Practically speaking, this means making use of natural consequences whenever possible.  If your child is able to connect the cost (his allowance for a week) with the offense (breaking his brother’s toy), he is much more likely to learn from it and apply the lesson to similar circumstances later on. 
• Conversely, consequences that lack intuitive connection to the action, or that seem random or excessive, tend to result in bitterness and despair. 
• Make generous use of restitution as a means of making things right. This, of course, is closely related to the issue of natural consequences.  If you break someone’s toy, it is a just punishment to have to compensate the person whose toy you broke.  What children cannot pay back in money, they may be able to pay back in time and labor (e.g., taking over a sibling’s chores or performing an act of kindness).
• Remember, do not embitter your child by the use of excessive punishment. Once a feeling of despair about the situation settles into a child’ heart, he is likely to develop a “What do I have to lose?” attitude that will only lead to more behavioral problems.