[notduncansmith]

> The point of punishing isn't to help with learning, it's to restore the emotional connection between parent and child by stopping the parent from hating the child.

Maybe I'm misreading you, but any resentment a parent builds towards their child is a symptom of their own lack of emotional development; punishment is absolutely not an outlet for making parents feel more in control so they can avoid resenting their children.

There is deliberate behavior modification, which creates an obvious consequence as a hack around the inability to comprehend more subtle ones, but doesn't involve any emotional exchange. Then there is emotional abuse that makes the abuser feel in control (guilting, shaming, yelling, etc).

Anything you don't like that comes out of a person, went into that person, either genetically or environmentally. The only way to help them stop doing that is to help them build a better platform to work from.

[wasterone]

Have you read my reply to pysc? I don't think you can 'get out of the game' of punishment. The fact is that you will punish people you are in close relationship to whether you like it or not. Even a frown or silence can be punishment and these sorts of things are not always under voluntary control.

I agree that the development of the parent is the key to reducing this. But note that development and learning themselves require peace and keeping the peace is a function of authority, both in families and in wider society. (This is not to be confused with authority in knowledge, which is irrational.)

[notduncansmith]

Yes, I saw that before commenting. I never advocated for the abolition of punishment.

What I take issue with at several levels is the use of punishment as a means of avoiding the development of parental resentment against kids, which is what it sounded like you were describing in the quote I pulled. My mistake if that's not what you were describing.