@utay62 My dad was an ex-army sergeant who hit us quite often. But by the time we were finishing primary school the hits were turning into punches.
I swore to never hits my kids. But..my daughter has been hit once, when she was three, and jumped up and grabbed onto the handle of a glass display cabinet and swung on it, bringing down the cabinet and destroying the glass...I smacked her bum before i could stop myself.
That's the only time she has been hit by me. My son has NEVER been hit.
Sometimes I DO shout at them.
What I do when that fails, is remove them from my company. Either tell them to go o their room, OR I go to my room and refuse to interact with them. My room also happens to be where the laptops are! (We each have one)
Sometimes they would sneak into my room to play. I let them, because often it was because I was sleeping in. They learned to be VERY quiet when they want to be.
In the very worst case, when my daughter was refusing to give me her phone so I could stop her playing with it instead of going to sleep, I reminded her that I paid the phone bill and if she stopped listening to me i would stop paying it.
My daughter was unable to start learning the piano at three (very common in China where we were) and as a consequence we had to cancel the lessons. Later on she asked if should could start learning again and we said no.
They are 14 and 16 now. Many people have commented on how calm and well behaved they are. Because they learned to discipline themselves, they have self discipline.
All studies say it is best not to hit kids. As someone who actually practiced it, I can tell you it worked for me. Currently they both wash, hang out and dry their own clothes, and after dinner we each wash up in rotation: 1st day me, next day daugther, next day son.
