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Saving Kids' Dignity:
One thing to remember about children round the age of five or six is that they have begun to really care what people think of them. And, in the beginning, they care more what their parents think, but once they get in school, they begin to care more what their peers think. At the same time, they have likely become interested in testing their boundaries and pushing the limits of the rules to see just how much the can get away with.
If you are concerned that your child is doing something that will harm them (or if you simply want to lay down the law so that they aren't breaking the rules without punishment), you will obviously need to do something about it.
What many parents fail to think about, though, is if there are friends surrounding the child (which is true many times because it is likely what caused your child to do whatever they did in the first place). If they have their friends around watching, you can still punish them without causing to lose face in front of their friends (which can, in turn, cause teasing and cause their self-esteem to drop).
If you yell at them in front of their friends, or punish them in front of them, it will make your child look like a baby to all his buddies. You can always avoid this situation by pulling him aside and telling him that he will be in trouble when you get home, and that it needs to stop right now or you will punish him in front of his friends. Be sure to tell him that you are pulling him aside so that he can save face in front of his friends, and he will appreciate this.
It shows him that you have your reasons for the punishment that he will receive, but that you aren't trying to embarrass him or just be mean by not letting him do it. Children don't always understand what parents are doing, and if you just yell at him in front of his friends, he will be so embarrassed and mad that he won't even be able to understand why he got in trouble in the first place. He will just believe that you were trying to be mean and he won't want to listen.
Granted, all kids will do this at some point anyway, but if you let your child know that you really do care about his feelings, it will make the punishment make a lot more sense. And, after all, the goal of punishment is to really teach the child not to do something. If you can get this point across without having your child be made fun of, you should.
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