Almost all children will, at times, display difficult or disruptive behaviour requiring discipline. As a parent who may have grown up during a time when discipline meant a cane in the school principal's office, you may be hesitant to apply disciplinary measures in raising your child.

However, while experts suggest discipline approaches relying on power assertion are harmful to children, discipline which is based on reasoning and encouragement and aims to help, not punish, provides security and is beneficial to the mental health of youngsters, both in childhood and adolescence. Following are some common scenarios encountered by parents of primary school aged children and, as recommended by childcare experts, effective ways to deal with them.

Disobedience and Tantrums:

Half an hour after asking her to go to bed, Mr Richards notices light coming from his ten year old daughter Michelle's room. He finds her sitting up in bed, playing her 'Game Boy'.

Disobedience is part of children’s efforts to assert their growing independence and test their parents' limits. The type of instructions you give will influence whether or not they are followed.

It is best to call your child's name and issue specific requests, for example, "Michelle, please go to bed now". It is also important to explain to your child beforehand that you will only issue requests once - nagging or getting angry will only teach her that limits can be pushed - and to be positive and reward good behaviour. A reward menu can be constructed for this purpose.

Some children are particularly stubborn, however, and may be prone to temper tantrums. One suggested technique is to explain to your child during a quiet time that if she displays such behaviour as jumping up and down for more than thirty seconds in the future, you will call Time Out and send her to another place in the house to learn to control her temper. It is recommended that children are sent to Time Out for as many minutes as they are old, for example, five minutes for children who are five. Again, it is vital you reward your child's newly developed self control - and spend regular relaxed time with her.

Messiness:

Mrs Bay enters her eight year old daughter's bedroom to wake her for school and must negotiate an obstacle course of toys and clothes littering the floor.

Since tidying up needs only the two basic skills of being able to pick things up and knowing where to put them down, children as young as five are capable of keeping their room tidy.

Rather than just demanding that your child keeps her room in order, it is a good idea to sit down with her and tell her you think she is old enough to look after her room and to discuss what a tidy room is. This might include putting toys in their 'right place' and dirty clothes in the laundry basket.

You can also discourage your child from developing the habit of procrastination by saying you expect her to tidy her room every day. You can offer your child limited choices, however, by working out rules with her - such as what time you will check her room each day.

Aggressive Behaviour:

After sending him to his room for being rough with his younger brother, Mr Hayes checks on his five year old son, David. He finds him standing in the corner, deliberately weeing on the carpet.

Aggressive behaviour in children can take many forms including explosive temper tantrums, fighting with siblings or friends, threats or attempts to hurt others, or intentional destruction of property.

Children who are aggressive in their social interactions may need training in social skills to help them learn how to interact with other children more appropriately.

Destructive behaviour, on the other hand, can be dealt with using the principles of logical consequences. For example, a broken object should be replaced, if possible, in part or whole by using the child's savings.

Swearing:

Mr and Mrs Lewis have been careful to always use appropriate language in front of their children so they are distressed when they overhear their six year old, Martin, casually using the 'F' word in conversation with his younger sister.

While it is upsetting to hear young children utter colourful and distasteful language, it is important to keep calm as overreacting may only encourage your child to test you further.

However, frequent or problematic swearing can be managed byrecording, for one week, how often your child swears and what he says, and then going through the list with him to come up with alternative words that convey the same meaning in a non offensive way.