it is about conveying immediate unpleasant consequences in children too young to fully comprehend the natural consequences of a situation, either because they are nuanced, long-term, or too extreme to let play out

A child will not understand that pain any more than they will grasp the nuanced, long-term, or too extreme event that frightened or enraged their parent into reactive violence.

It does not work. Instead of associating the event with something dangerous and painful- they associate the parent that way. Then authority.

You have to stay right with them all the time unless you’ve hired someone else to do it. If a child drinks gas- he won’t drink much of it. If he’s got the lid off, you’re already too late to prevent it.

When my son was in preschool he slipped through the wooden gate into the parking lot. One of the TA’s saw him and collected him immediately. They talked to him about it and after that he had a very clear understanding. What they did not do was hurt him because he didn’t understand why what he was doing was dangerous. “Here’s some pain to avoid some pain, kid. I love you.” Because that’s crazy.

We were going out to the parking lot through the same door a while later and he put his hands up to push it open. Then he stopped and put them down and said, “Goddamn it.”

That was all Mommy. But he’d obviously absorbed a lesson and no one whipped his ass to do it.