Beating a burned ferret

Conventional parenting wisdom dictates that corrective punishment (and let me not neglect the oft overlooked positive reinforcement) should occur immediately after the transgression (or the rarer good deed). -shenry

This is a good rule of thumb. All the wait-until-your-father-finds-out bullshit is ineffective compared to immediate justice. Temporal proximity between the child’s deed (good or bad) and the parental reaction (good or bad) is required to maximize changes in the child’s behavior.

BUT…

This is just an idea, here…

But what if the instantaneous parental response was supplemented with a time-lagged parental response? Like if I were to come home from work one nondescript Tuesday and administer an ass-whoopin’ with no obvious provocation. The randomness of such an act would leave poor Lori confused and frightened. I could then harness her disorientation and refocus it on that time, two-weeks ago, when she borrowed mommy’s lighter and aerosol hairspray to test the fire retardant properties of ferret fur. Sure, she was immediately and thoroughly punished two weeks ago, but why not remind her again. It’s double the punishment. Obviously, a technique such as this would be ineffective if overused, but if administered sparingly for appropriate insubordinations it might be a valuable tool in my parenting bag-o’-tricks.

…just thinking out loud.
...and so it was written, shenry at 9/19/2003 09:42:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .