What’s the Difference Between Discipline and Punishment?

Discipline is an internal force that deals with the issues of evaluating personal motivations and mastering self-control. Punishment on the other hand is an external force which attempts to discourage behavior by associating that behavior with pain or discomfort.

“Discipline” and “punishment” are often used interchangeably, but the two terms obviously are not at all synonymous. Because of this, the word “discipline” is often thought of as having negative connotations. That is a completely backwards way of understanding discipline. When you hear the word discipline, think “self-discipline”. Is having self-discipline a bad thing? Of course not. Being disciplined is a great trait to have. It means that you have good intentions and a high level of self-control, and that is certainly not a bad thing in any way.

Respect vs Fear

Too often the terms “fear” and “respect” are used interchangeably as well. These two words are not synonymous either. Leading by respect is far different than leading by fear. To be feared is not the same thing as being respected, quite the opposite in fact. People may follow you out of fear, and may even act respectful towards you outwardly, but that is not the same thing as actually respecting you, and inwardly they are far more likely to despise you.

Discipline is a part of leading through respect. A disciplined submissive follows the rules out of respect for her dominant because she doesn’t want to be disrespectful towards him or let him down. She also follows the rules out of self-respect because she knows the rules are there for her own good and she doesn’t want to disrespect herself or let herself down either.

Punishment is a part of leading through fear. A fearful submissive follows the rules because she is afraid of what will happen to her if she doesn’t. She knows that breaking the rules will result in unwanted, and even severe, pain and/or discomfort. If punishment is used to the exclusion of discipline, the submissive is not being taught to respect her dominant or herself, which is obviously important. Instead, she is merely being taught to obey. So, if punishment is going to be used, please don’t forget to also focus on discipline.

Discipline is Required, Punishment is Optional

Being disciplined and teaching discipline go hand-in-hand with being a dom. It’s part of a dom’s role to help their sub learn and grow and be the best person they can be, and helping the sub be more disciplined is certainly part of that. In fact, in any healthy relationship, kinky or vanilla, there is going to be a quality of each encouraging the other to be their best self, which entails both partners promoting disciplined.  Both partners being disciplined fosters a healthy relationship.

Punishment on the other hand is not an inherent part of a healthy relationship. That’s not to say that a healthy relationship can’t have a punishment dynamic to it, because it certainly can. But discipline is a required aspect of a healthy relationship, and is part of the dom’s role to teach their sub.

Your relationship could have multiple layers of dynamics. As it is, DD/lg is already a blending of a D/s dynamic and a CG/l dynamic, and there’s no reason you couldn’t have further dynamics layered in as well. Some littles may be both little girls and pets for example. The two could be blended together in the same scene or could be separated with each happening within its own scene. Likewise, punishment does not have to be part of a DD/lg dynamic, or part any dynamic for that matter. It’s up to the dom and the sub to decide on together what activities they will do or won’t partake in within the relationship, and punishment is no different.

Teaching Discipline Without Punishment

Discipline does not have to involve punishments. Some methods of teaching discipline without involving punishments are leading by example, having constructive conversations about self-discipline, verbal praise, and rewards.

Leading By Example

As the dominant it is your job to lead the relationship, so one of the easiest ways to teach self-discipline is to lead by example. If your submissive has a rule that she is not supposed to eat sweets right before bed, it’s going to be much harder if she sees you doing the same. Help her be disciplined by being disciplined yourself. Not only will this set an example for her, but she will feel as if she isn’t alone on the journey, and it may be easier to do as a team. If the rule she’s having a hard time remembering is to brush her teeth after eating, make a point of doing it together.

Constructive Communication

Simply having a constructive conversation about discipline can also be a good way to instill discipline. Help your submissive to understand why the rule exists, and the value in following it. Let her know that it’s important to you that she follows the rule because she is important to you, and you want the best for her. Making her feel attacked, criticizing her, shaming her, and punishing her is probably not going to be as helpful as a constructive conversation.

Verbal Praise

Praising your little can be one of the most effective tools in teaching discipline. Calling her a “good girl” is especially effective. Just about every little girl absolutely loves hearing those words and will work hard to be your good girl so that she can continue to receive that praise. Unless she’s a bratty little, she probably doesn’t want to let you down and wants to be your good girl. Let her know that you recognize her efforts and that you appreciate her. Tell her she’s doing a great job and that you’re proud of her.

Rewards

Rewards are another way of teaching discipline. Rewards are basically the opposite of punishments. A reward is a method of positive reinforcement, a punishment is a method of negative reinforcement. A reward encourages good behavior, a punishment discourages bad behavior. Rewards are inherently rooted in teaching self-discipline; punishments are not necessarily rooted in teaching self-discipline.

Rewards can be given immediately after an encouraged behavior. That can be as simple as calling her a “good girl” but can also be any number of other things she likes. A lot of littles also like stickers for example. Gold stars are common, but the sticker can be any kind of cute stickers she likes. Giving the sticker in itself can be the reward, but sometimes sticker charts are also used, and bigger awards given for reaching a certain number of stickers. Some ideas for rewards are: giving her sweets; taking her out to ice cream, to the park, to the zoo, on a date; buy her a stuffie; let her pick a prize from a prize box; give her something she likes sexually. The better you get to know your little, the more you can customize your rewards to her liking.

Punishment vs Consequence

Punishments are not the same thing as consequences. Consequences are natural results of a person’s actions. For example, if your monthly allowance is $500 and you go to the casino and blow it in the first week, a consequence of that is you now have to go the rest of the month with no pocket cash. Conversely, a punishment is not a natural result of a person’s actions, it is something that is imposed on them by someone else in response to an unwanted action. For example, if you break a certain rule, you receive a spanking. Sometimes letting your little live with the natural consequences of their actions is a good way to teach them discipline. Do not bail them out after they blow their allowance. Let them learn that if they are not more responsible with their money, they will be have to be broke the rest of the month, and you are not going to give them more money or pay for the things they wish they would have spent their allowance on. Teaching that all actions have consequences can be a powerful lesson.

Punishment is Not a Substitution for Discipline

Using punishment to the exclusion of teaching discipline is not a very effective way to discourage unwanted behavior and is neglectful because its discipline is so important. Its far more effective to simply teach the submissive to be more self-disciplined than to always resort to punishments instead. Enhancing discipline with the use of punishments though may increase the effectiveness of teaching discipline in some relationships or in some cases. Just be careful that you are still focusing on discipline and not substituting it for punishment. It might be easy for you to get so caught up in punishment that you end up neglecting discipline in the process, and that would not be healthy.

How to Use Discipline and Punishment Together

Here’s one example of how you might discipline your little, and also incorporate punishment for added effect. If your little breaks a rule, let’s say she misses checking in with you on time while she is away, you might have a constructive conversation with her and explain to her that you love her and worry about her and want to know where she’s at and who she’s with for her own safety. When she apologizes and says she understands and will try harder, you might tell her she’s a “good girl”. But on top of that you might also bend her over your knee and give a spanking afterwards to help ensure she doesn’t forget.

Effective Punishments

For punishments to be effective, they really need to be something your little doesn’t like. Spankings are usually the first thing to come to mind when most people think about punishment. But if your little is a masochist and likes spankings, that’s not a good punishment. But perhaps she only likes stingy pain, such as from a cane or a flogger, and dislikes thuddy pain such as from a wooden paddle or a hairbrush. In that case you could just vary your spanking method for a better punishment. There are many other ways to punish though, including: putting her on a time-out; having her stand in the corner; taking away privileges; and lecturing her. It can be anything the two of you have agreed may be used as a punishment, and which she dislikes. Sometimes sex is used as a punishment, but it would need to be something sexual she dislikes to serve well as a punishment. She may dislike deepthroating as an example but has agreed to accept being punished in that way.

Intentionally vs Unintentionally Breaking the Rules

When a submissive breaks a rule unintentionally, there may be a misunderstanding between the dom and the sub, and the dom bears the greater responsibility for avoiding such misunderstandings to begin with, so punishment may not be fair, and if used in this case is not going to clear up the misunderstanding. The dom should be asking himself how and why the rule was broken, including self-evaluation in that process, and probably should not be administering punishments. Unintentionally breaking a rule can also result from simply forgetting the rule. In this case, there may be too many rules for the submissive to remember at this time, and you may want to start with a more basic set of rules and slowly add more rules in over time. Printing the rules out and even posting them on the wall may also be helpful.

If a rule is broken intentionally, the rule may need to be re-evaluated, the submissive may require more discipline, or a combination of the two. Perhaps the rule is too restrictive and it’s not practical for the submissive to always be able to follow it. Of course, the rule being broken could legitimately indicate that the submissive lacks discipline and is in need of some guidance in that department. A conversation should be had to determine if the rule may need to be modified or if the submissive just needs more discipline, and both things could be true to different extents.