RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUNISHMENT ACTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES TO PUNISHMENT IN PERCEPTION OF MILD AND EXTREME MISBEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN

According to Straus and Fauchier (2007), mothers who use punishment toward children more often alsouse more alternatives to punishment. The frequency of corrective actions represents a measure of the degree to which parents are engaged in an attempt to correct their child's misbehavior. The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between parental punishment actions and alternatives to punishmentin perception of mild and extreme misbehavior reported by mothers of pre-school children. A mixed method research design was used and it included 63 mothers, who reported a total of 74 occurrences of mild and 76 of extreme child misbehavior. The content analysis yielded three categories of behavior: (1) everyday activities and duties (2) relations to others and (3) play and child experimentation. Mothers who use punishment more often during extreme misbehavior also use alternatives to punishment, whereby the assumptions by Strausand Fauchier (2007) are confirmed, but they are not confirmed for occurrences of mild misbehavior. The frequency of punishment in perception of different intensity of misbehavior shows that mothers significantly more often use punishment and especially corporate punishment in the occurrences of extreme compared to mild misbehavior. The abovementioned indicates that future research of parental behavior needs to include the parental perception of the intensity of child misbehavior.