Punishment, some say, is excessive control that humiliates children. According to this point of view, punishment frightens children and makes them angry. We should, of course, be concerned about punishment.
Punishment can become abusive.
Parents who punish often or severely create more problems than they solve. A relationship based primarily on punishment undermines children's respect for authority. Continued punishment may gain children's compliance at the cost of their self-worth. Reasonable consequences, however, can be part of an effective discipline strategy. Reasonable consequences are responses to deliberate wrongdoing.