Crime and Punishment

Growing up, my three brothers and I could never quite understand why our father was always angry. It's not as if we tried to make him mad or anything; it just sort of happened.
My father's chosen method of exacting discipline upon us was through the strap. Oh, how we dreaded that awful instrument of punishment! Oh how we quaked at the very mention of it!

Of course, our mother very rarely went so far as to punish us, but when she did, her chosen instrument was the wooden spoon. It was just as effective, perhaps because it was so rare. Our reaction, I suppose, was "Noooooo, mum! Not the wooden spoon! We were just kidding around! We didn't know you were serious."

Well, I'm going to put the question out there, to all my readers: how do you think children nowadays should be punished? Feel free to answer it in my poll:

How Should You Discipline A Child?
	Go with the classics: Wooden spoon, or nothing
	The strap - simple, economical, and effective.
	The whip, the whip! Lashings never hurt them!
	The Boot: it's the only way they'll learn.
	The Child Must Be Put on a Diet - Nothing But Cabbage Soup for a Month!
Free polls from Pollhost.com

I'm going with 'The Boot' myself. If the children complain, you can always tell them 'disparaging The Boot is a bootable offence!' But what about you?

UPDATE!
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.

Excellent advice from Lewis Carroll.

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE! - Four votes for the wooden spoon? People, what's wrong with the strap? I got the strap and it never did me any harm!