What is "tough love" and are you a fan of it?

[Monna]

Are these your only disciplinary choices?
Either hit a child or use mental anguish?

Really?

I'm not very original, so I can only tell you what helped me with a very rebellious teenage boy...

I read, and tried to apply the lessons in Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish's book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Amazingly it worked like a charm. When I read it I got the impression that it was for "under fives" but it worked first time on a really smart teenager, and it worked time and again. So physical and verbal/psychological abuse are not the only options. I'm sure the methods here will work on adults also ... so many of us have not really grown up.