It can be really hard to know how to discipline your child for each thing they do wrong, especially when the wrongdoing keeps changing. You don't want to use the same discipline method every time, because this allows your child the option of choosing that they are willing to pay the time to do the crime. If they don't know what punishment will come from their act, it is a lot harder for them to make this choice. This is why punishments should change depending on the rule they broke, and if parents get creative, it makes it even better. Here are a couple of tips and ideas for creative discipline methods:

• The punishment should equal the crime—if your child did something very minor, the punishment shouldn't be a month-long grounding. Likewise, if your child stole a piece of candy from the store when you weren't looking, they shouldn't just have to sit in time-out for five minutes. The strength of the punishment needs to equal the strength of the crime in order to get the point across to your child of what the most important rules are.

• The punishment should also relate to the crime—this is one of the easiest ways to determine how to punish your child. If your daughter wrote all over the walls with a crayon, instead of sitting her in time-out for an hour or taking away cartoons, make her stand there and scrub the markings for that hour. This gets the point across a lot faster. Instead of you having to explain that the reason she can't color on the walls is because you don't want to have to scrub them clean, she will begin to not color on the walls because she doesn't want to have to do it.

• Variety is important—changing it up every so often is a great idea. Use other people's methods. When your friend tells you she used a certain discipline method, try it out. It may not work for you, but it might. With as often as kids break rules, it can become daunting rather quickly trying to think up fresh discipline ideas, so it is best to take some from other sources.

• Make sure the punishment fits the child—you will not want to instill a punishment on a child before are even old enough to understand that what they did is wrong. You also want to make sure that, as your child gets older, the punishments begin to change. If a 6 year old is receiving the same punishment that he did when he was 3, it's not likely to do much good. This is simply because the rules have changed, your child has grown up since then, and there are many rules that are a lot more important than those that were in place when he was younger.

Some parents may prefer to stick with one type of punishment for all crimes, and prefer not to get creative with discipline. This is up to the parents, of course. What is most important is whatever works best for each parent and what is most effective for the child.

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