Center offers tips for dealing with a child's misbehavior

• Start by thinking about your goals as a parent and what you want to teach your child.

• Behavior is a child's attempt to meet his or her needs. If your child is delaying bedtime, ask yourself why. Did he not see you all day? Does he not know how to wind down? How can you help?

• Make requests instead of demands.

The Center for Effective Discipline, in Ohio, and other child advocates also suggest:

• Teach children what kind of behavior you expect rather than punishing them when you don't see it.

• Remember that infants do not understand right and wrong.

• Take steps to prevent misbehavior, such as baby-proofing the house to keep young children from playing with dangerous or fragile things, and having regular times for meals, studying and bedtime so kids understand what's expected when.

• Give age-appropriate choices — and consequences. For example, if a child is playing with her food at the table, ask, "Would you like to stop playing with your food or leave the table?"

• Praise appropriate behavior.

Spanking by the numbers

17 — nations that have outlawed corporal punishment of children by family members: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Ukraine.

29 — U.S. states that have banned corporal punishment in schools.

61% — of surveyed university students in the United States who said they were spanked as children.

74%— of surveyed students in Tanzania who said they were spanked, the highest rate among 32 nations polled.

Sources: EPOCH-USA (End Physical Punishment of Children), University of New Hampshire.