Physical punishment of children has been a part of the American psyche for centuries and explains to some extent the difficulty our society has in avoiding all forms of punishment in defining discipline. We have no problem in condemning the grosser forms of physical and sexual abuse that befall large numbers of infants and children in America. The problem exists in our efforts to differentiate physical punishment that we consider appropriate from physical punishment that we consider inappropriate. Physical punishment is also coercive insofar that it shapes how the punished thinks about the world and his role in it, and how he constructs images of all forms of authority and all kinds and degrees of obedience. To understand this clearly, authoritarianism must be compared with authority .
Authoritarianism is bad, while authority is a positive dynamic force ordered to growth.
Whether a child is cooperative in the dental office is dependent in large measure on the progress he has made toward achieving a recognizable level of self-discipline, and on the dentist's ability to coordinate his own managerial skills with the child's responses. The dentist needs to be a part of the discipline that should be a part of everything the child's family does. In addition the child must learn to predict what reactions his own actions will cause. Professionals should know that children are predictable. There is nothing unusual about this.