“Don’t make a wrong move,” the officer said as he pinned the struggling subject to the ground. “Period.”
The officer tightened the handcuffs around the subject’s thin wrists.
“Ow, ow, ow, it really hurts,” the subject exclaimed.
The officer pressed his weight into the subject’s small body while school staff watched it all unfold. The person he was restraining was 7 years old.
With proper, consistent, non-extreme consequences to poor choices at home, children can usually extrapolate without the need for the application of “serious” punishments.
That whole “scared into good behaviour” thing is bullshit punishment escalation that’s typically only deemed “necessary” when the “discipline” situation at home is random, inequal, unjust, and therefore difficult to understand as a framework in life from the ages where such behavioural patterns are formed.
That’s not to say some people won’t continue to make poor choices anyway, but scarring children emotionally isn’t an appropriate “solution” to that.
One-on-one individualized attention coupled with understanding and empathy is the thing to start with there.