"I will not whine.

"I will not whine.

"I will not whine."

My 8-year-old son is at it again.

Writing sentences for doing something bad.

It's one way my wife and I discipline our two oldest children.

Talking back to your parents gets you 10 sentences.

Not cleaning up your room, 25 sentences.

Hitting or kicking your sibling, 50 sentences.

Throughout the long, hot summer, my son and 6-year-old daughter had more free time to harass and torture each other. So we've been going through a lot of paper.

It's hard to tell if this form of discipline works any better than all the rest that we've tried.

We yell and holler (yes, I have some family roots in Tennessee), give the kids our best evil-eye glares and send the little perpetrators to their rooms.

We make them sit on timeouts, equal in minutes to their age.

We take away privileges, such as playing computer games or extra playtime outside.

Occasionally, when they do something particularly heinous, such as shoving their 17-month-old sister or fighting with each other, we even spank them.

But making them write sentences seems so much more civilized, and as much as the kids hate to write them, we figure it must be pretty good punishment.

"I will listen the first time I am told to do something.

"I will listen the first time I am told to do something."

Longer sentences like those are more punitive. Also, my wife told me I should give them sentences that say what they should do, not what they shouldn't do.

So, instead of "I will not call Daddy an idiot or stupid," I make them write "I will treat my father with respect."

Given their assignment, the kids grab a pencil and paper and head to their rooms. In a little while, they return with a page of their monotonous work.

I did not have to write sentences when I was little. I do remember getting my mouth washed out with a bar of soap one time.

Back when my siblings and I harassed and tortured each other on our dairy farm, our punishment was more work.

If I had time to fuss with my sister, then I must have time to use the weed wacker or pull weeds in the garden or maybe it was time for another rock-picking day, my parents said.

Just the threat of having to pick up rocks in the hot sun encouraged exemplary behavior from all of us.

On such trips, my mother slowly drove a tractor pulling a flatbed wagon around a field. The idea was to pick up rocks so they didn't damage our field equipment.

While Mom belted out Christian hymns from her lofty tractor seat, my siblings and I walked by the wagon and picked up rocks.

"Are we done yet?" we'd ask every time around the field.

"Done? We're gonna work till Jesus comes!" she shouted back to us with a big smile, as if his holiness was coming to dinner.

So we kept on walking and groaning.

Now I hear the same groans from my children when they write sentences.

Perhaps, to be fair, I should discipline my own actions.

I won't do any 38-minute time-outs, so what about writing sentences?

"I will not curse when the Phillies strand a man at third with less than two outs." (No, the soap did not work.)

Or, "I will eat only one dinner a day.

I will eat only one dinner a day."

No, I'll leave the sentence writing to my kids.

Perhaps after several thousand sentences, it will hit home to them that breaking rules is no fun.

Maybe they'll learn that actions have consequences, that children must listen to their parents.

If not, at least their penmanship will improve.

Ryan Robinson is a Lancaster Newspapers reporter. Contact him at rrobinson@lnpnews.com.