On the Law of the Household : The Principles Used by Parents in Disciplining Their Children

In this article I first describe the basic principles that parents employ in disciplining their children. The description is based on a survey of parents, the major results of which are that parental sanctions are premised on wrongdoing--not on the mere causation of harm; that parental sanctions tend to be greater when wrongdoing results in harm than when it does not; that parental sanctions for intentionally harmful conduct exceed those for negligence; and that parental sanctions are not raised when the probability that wrongdoing would be discovered is low