My kids are near perfect on the behavior scale. I always have spoken to them with respect. I would have been prepared to take it down however many notches were needed according to their maturity level, but they just never made that necessary. Reason always worked.   I take no (very little) credit for it. I lucked out. (I say I take very little credit in that I suppose I deserve some for not actively screwing it up with belittling comments to children, as is oh-so-common. "What's wrong with you?" "Are you allowed to say 'no' to me?" I once saw a "credentialed" educator using sarcasm on a pre-schooler – I asked her to think it through.)

I have a friend who has two greatly oversized hell-raising boys who were tormenting all kids and adults from the time they could walk. I saw his complicated behavior and reward charts for each on his refrigerator, developed by their counselor. He told me he was so sick of all the know-it-alls who were convinced that it's all in the rearing technique, and all he needed to do was x, y z. The worst, he said, was a woman with four perfectly behaved children. Then she had a fifth. A hellraiser. She later apologized to my friend for her earlier ignorance.

The guy in our hospital example above is ineffectual, but the more worrisome thing is that he is likely to raise that kid with humour-impairments. If he wants to use that approach, he should have told the kid that if he didn't settle down, he would be sold to a family in China where he would have to make GI-Joes all day long, and not be allowed to play with them.

(P.S. I vote for what Susan said, too.)