Oh my word. Which Nille was this? I have a sudden urge to go there - and I never go to Nille 
Kudos for crushing down that urge and giving her what she really needs, quivering lip or no. You’re a good grandpa.
I hate participating in these sorts of RO-against-modern-children threads (it is always hilarious to me to see people complaining about “kids these days” - as if that wasn’t the case when they were kids! :D) - but I gotta say that I approve of this post.
I’m learning, if slowly, that the parenting thingie that seems to work is to back up your words with consequences. That does not, in my case, include spanking of our 3 year old, but rather removal from the fun.
A relatively recent example: our kid can sometimes get out of hand when there is too much excitement going on, like when we are at a family gathering with his (older) cousins, who are not disciplined. One time, he got badly behaved - he would not sit down for dinner, but kept running around, and he would not be quiet - he was too riled up. We tried calming him down with a time-out, but he would not calm or obey. So we told him - “If you do not sit down, we will leave”. He didn’t and so we did - much to the family’s surprise and I think dismay.
He was upset by being made to leave the party, but it really is the only thing that works - telling him over and again “don’t” has no effect if you let him stay and misbehave. If you take him away, he learns that behaving = having fun and not behaving = no fun.
I certainly would not claim he’s perfectly behavied or that we are perfect in parenting. But we are trying to learn.
I would like to volunteer to beat any/all of your children as necessary, if you don’t feel up to it. My travel expenses are minimal, and I’ll charge only 5 cents per strike.
There will be a small additional surcharge for strangling, or if you want me to use nonstandard weapons.
Dunno. You have to prove first that you are up to beating on an active 3 year old.
It would be a bad investment and poor teaching moment it the tyke gets the better of you and kicks your ass.
In my experience, just backing up what you say works. When Fang hears that X will happen, or Y will have to be taken away, he knows what would happen next if he doesn’t change his ways.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from testing his limits. He’s five. That’s his job. My job is to set and enforce the limits.
Spike is still a little young to understand consequences. He’s eighteen months. Right now, his biggest infractions are flinging and hitting both of which result in 90 seconds on the Time Out Mat with one of us stating in a very firm manner (not yelling) that he is on the Time Out Mat, and why. It took Fang about two weeks of the Time Out Mat for every infraction to break him of hitting and biting whe he was that little.
That’s true.
Be sure to take away their Nerf guns before I arrive.
I regularly engage in “social engineering” when I’m out and about it public. Kids love me for some reason and as long as they are well mannered I’m happy to entertain them. The ill mannered ones however, get treated to a sharp, bass bark and the raised eyebrow of doom. You’d be surprised how many small children have a sense of embarrassment when called on their behaviour by a stranger. I’ve seen many a larval human go from a screaming wreck to :eek: and very quiet when confronted by a stranger talking to them like another adult. Usually its something along the line of: “Hey, what are you crying about?” They clam right up. I’ve only had a few parents get indignant with me, but I’ve found that the look of doom works just as well on them. I don’t find myself to be too imposing, maybe its the bushy beard.
I don’t know if it’s a generational thing or a regional thing (I’m 42 and grew up in the south), but it wasn’t like that when I was a kid. Any and every adult was free to correct you when you needed it, (right down to a swat on the behind if the adult was a relative or friend of the family) and if you screwed up, not only would you get corrected by whatever adult was nearby, you’d get it again when your parents found out. And God forbid you really screw up, because you’d get punished or corrected right in front of God and Everybody. Oh, the shame!:o
People have been complaining about “the kids these days” lacking respect and acting like undisciplined hooligans since at least the Roman era (I can remember reading a hilarious quote on the subject from an Roman author whose name, alas, escapes me), and I will bet since the evolution of the first homo sapiens. 
I mean, if you are 42 you were born in the 1960s - the era when Dr. Spock (not the Vulcan, alas) was blamed for “ruining American youth” through “permissiveness” as very young children:
… the fact that the very people whose parents were potentially wild out-of-control hippies are now making “kids these days” noises just proves that human nature, if nothing else, is immutable. 
If I drop my kids off there will you give them Thorazine? Because I was seriously thinking about it last night…
Other side of this problem - when I take my kids into a store and they act like the rebellious brat heathens I’ve raised them to be, I almost feel like I can’t discipline them in view of anyone lest I be accused of child abuse. I don’t know what the solution is. I guess I could start with preemptive beatings before we enter the store. Honestly that’s not far from the truth. Before we go in somewhere that I can’t afford to replace what they might break or they’ll be total asses in front of people I drop my voice to what the younger one calls the “mean mommy voice” and tell them that I do not have any plans to corral any out of control children and that I have a legion of toys from their toy box that can go straight to the garbage when we get home if they can’t control themselves.
We’ve only had to lose a set of legos and a couple swords so far. But I’m mean like that. I also charged my older son money when he does stuff like order desserts just to order them (after a long line of questioning involving I’ll get it if you really want it but don’t order it if you are just going to let it sit there).
I occasionally watch shows like “Super Nanny” with my mom, and I always ask if my brother and I were that bad when we were kids. I ask if we acted out in public much or not.
She contends that she just didn’t bother to take us out in public much. We spent most of our socializing time at home with the relatives where we could be kid-like in private.
Go mom, I guess.
I like to think of Super Nanny as televised birth control.