Spare the rod, spoil the child

[pocaracas]

So, little 4 year old jimmy is standing on a chair and dancing, when you find him.
You bring him down from there and tell him not to do it again, because he may fall and hurt himself badly.

5 minutes later, you find him doing the exact same thing.
You bring him down again and now you raise your voice a bit and let him know that he cannot stand on the chair. You take away the music and the toy he has in his hand.

5 minutes later, he's back there.

So, as a parent, would you rather keep defying odds and keep finding him defying gravity or would you prefer to instill in him the fear of you finding he's dancing in a tall place which he knows (or has been told and has minimally understood) that's potentially bad for him?
Or... please share your ideas on dealing with a kid like this, if you find this is a false dichotomy (which it most likely is!)

Consider the not so distant time when he'll figure out that he can stack chairs or stools and climb them so he can be even higher...

The same for properly packing or storing toys left on the floor where people, including him, can trip, slip and fall.... and so many other situations where, at a young age, hypothetical consequences are less considered than the overseer threat and very possible action...

Life isn't black and white and you can alter future events. Put Jimmy in a timeout after the first warning, for instance.

What on Earth is a "timeout"?

Make Jimmy go clean his room.

He's 4, remember... At 4 they clean one item that's lying around and then start playing with another they find... hey, you're on to something...
But 5 minutes later, he's found with that toy standing on the chair, again... now what?!

Tell Jimmy to go play outside (although this involves work on your part watching him).

Real potential scenario: it's raining!
It's been raining all day.
Jimmy went to kids school and had to stay inside all day.
Mum has to make dinner, dad's not home yet.
Can't (shouldn't) have the kid in the kitchen, so it's better to leave him playing in the living room or his room... still, he goes for the chair.

Take Jimmy to a jungle gym (again, work on your part).

First the timeout, now a jungle gym... This being non-native keeps my out of these terms. What's a jungle gym?

At what point do you not realize that referring to spanking for daily living punishments you're merely seeking immediate result at the cost of your Childs psychological well being?

Daily?
I'm assuming sporadic use of a slap to instill fear of future slaps, rendering, in the future, the simple threat of a slap a valid deterrent of an undesired behavior.
It's never supposed to be a daily occurrence. If it happens every day, then something is definitely wrong, I agree.

The study addressed corporal punishment, not conditional spanking. Depression, aggression, anti social behaviour are the result.

Let me re-iterate this since y'all seem to be getting heated. Conditional spanking and corporal punishment with spanking is not the same thing and is differentiated in the studies.

ooops.
Must have missed that detail...
my bad.

My point is this: I don't fucking trust people in general to be their own arbiters of justice when it comes to dealing out physical assault on helpless children. A small population of spankers can seem to handle using it as an effective tool, but a majority cannot. Its a social problem.

Yep, that's why I agreed, earlier, with the general advice given by all (or most) of these studies and institutions: never hit the kids. At least, it will make the parents aware of that potential problem and cause them to withhold larger spankings.