I truly, truly agree with this. I work as a Special Education teacher and deal with all sorts of behavior throughout the week. I work with little ones which make it even more difficult at times. However, if a student of mine does something that requires a time out. Then they are given a time out. Or if they have to miss out on some type of reward then they miss out on it.

First and foremost, no matter what the situation I always debrief with the student and do my best to explain to them why the received the consequence and what we can do better next time. Or how we can better handle the situation. If it the idea is hard for them to grasp then we can roll play the situation, etc.

The main thing is that a child should have to be given an explanation for the punishment. Not just the punishment itself. Children will learn very little from only punishment.