Punishment for children: yes or no Good upbringing is extremely important for children. In the very young age they develop their system of values, learn about morality, and learn to distinguish good from evil. This determines their further life and impact that they do on the society. Parents often use punishment to explain children what is right and what is wrong, but is punishment the best way of explanation? Punishment has a lot of disadvantages. The worst thing about it, in my opinion, is that children become afraid of doing mistakes. When my sister was smaller, she used to cry every time she made a minor mistake while rewriting text in her copybook, because she was told that this is wrong, so she was afraid to get punishment. Fear is enemy of success, so parents should not scare children with punishment. On the other hand, if parents do not show any reaction, when their children steal toys from their peers in kindergarten, or spend hours playing computer games instead of doing homework, this may encourage children to continue doing the same things. Punishment is necessary sometimes, but form of punishment must be also appropriate. Parents should give proper explanation why this is right and this is wrong. Punishment should not influence child’s dignity or cause any harm to child. Parents may tell the child who stole toy to apologize before the owner of the toy, and return it back. Computer games player may be left without computer for some days and read books instead. To sum it up, right punishment might help child to understand why theft is wrong and sharing toys with other children is good. But punishment cannot offence child in any way and should always go with discussion and explanation. Otherwise, children will grow up in fear before punishment.