I favor really awful threats of punishment. Not "you cannot try out for football." Too realistic. Much better is an announcement that you plan to chop them into bite size pieces, feed them to the cat and use their bones for musical instruments. My son would quiet down to listen to my elaborations and I didn't really lose face when I did not carry the threats out.

This is a resourceful crowd. I bet they could come up with some really effective threats.

For instance, "if you don't stop dawdling, I'm going to chop your feet off and make ashtrays out of them."

I once overheard a fellow teacher offer to duct tape a yappy kid to the wall so everyone would hear his grievances. The kid fell silent, then said, "Cool! Just don't let them throw anything at me."

Few could get away with that in class, but the kids LOVED this guy.

Depends on the age of the child. I wouldn't do it with a 6 year old, but a 12 year old? Sure. When my kids hit adolescence and would complain about something, rather than complain back about their being ungrateful spoiled brats, I would tell them "Obviously it's because I hate you and want to make you unhappy. Besides, how else will you be able to complain to your future therapists?". Basically since I am agreeing that I am an unreasonable and unloving parent, they have nothing left to argue with me about!

They really appreciate drama. The rational saint method cruelly denies them that. Consider becoming religious and informing them that they risk eternal damnation. Describe hell fire in detail. I liked the ashtray suggestion.