Certainty vs. Severity

[Brigliadore]

Originally posted by Whit
However, they do know that Mom has custody and is far more erratic with punishments than I am.

I think right here is where you hit the nail on the head. If you let a child get away with something a few times and then punish them only once in a while for it, you get a kid that acts up a lot of the time. Frankly if I liked running around screaming and I only got punished for it 25-40% of the time then heck I am going to do it as often as I want, because the other 60-75% of the time I am not going to get in trouble for it.