Simply put I would probably raise a child like I raise my dog. And don't tell me to talk them out of it. I have tried on children ranging from 2-6/7 and it has no effect(maybe I have just ran into some really rebelious kids). It don't matter what they are doing. They hurt your dogs, you tell them no and make them leave your property for a while.. next thing you know they are back and hurting the dogs again.. this kid is four but it took forever for it to get accross.. it finally got accross when we slapped him(with his gaurdians permision of course) every time he did some thing to hurt the dog. He stopped soon after.. even when those doing the slapping weren't around.
It depends on the situation... sometiems that sort of punishment is the most effective/only effective. It doesn't work on many teens too well due to the fact that you have to use so much force on many of them. Which means it should never be the central means of punishment, but as with everything this has its good and can be used as a trump when all else you have tried fails. Or just do what my dad did.. say no grab the wrist and don't let them do anything for a bit. Course my dad had the added edition of being able to leave bruises even on grown men and women just by grabbing thier wrist.. so I did get a black and blue wrist from it as well. Thing is he was never trying to do it(mom says that) it was just that when he was upset about something he did not know how to properly control his strength.. one reason why he never spanked I think.
