I'd say personally discussion is the most important thing, especially with young children. I have worked in childcare and OSHC before and when I was working with preschool age children (3 - 4) in a childcare often some of the workers would put children in time out and not discuss what happened with them, but when situations like that occurred I spoke to all kids involved rather than just knee jerk punishing them and putting them in time out and I often found out the misbehaviour (which I did address too) was due to earlier social misunderstandings. One example of this was a time when one of the boys hit one of the girls. It turned out he wanted to play chasey (tag) with her but instead of asking her he just chased her and she yelled at him to stop and then he got upset at being yelled at so he hit her. We addressed the fact he shouldn't be hitting people but I also taught him some skills in asking people to play and communicating what he wants to do. If all that happened was that he was put in time out, and the incident wasn't discussed, a similar incident would occur because he wouldn't have been given guidance on how to develop the social skills to initiate a game. It depends on the age of course, but in the early years at least, punishment and rewards play a role but discussion is very important as they may have gaps in social and emotional skills that need addressing.
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