…Infants, from the age of birth to two years old, generally cannot make judgments. Therefore, how they are trained is based upon the functions in which the cogitative power can engage. Before the age of about one year of age, the cogitative power is not developed enough to begin the process which is used from about one to two years of age, viz. training by pleasure and pain.⁵⁴⁵ The cogitative power, at this stage, assesses things based upon pleasure and pain and so that is how the child must be trained. The pleasure affirms the cogitative power in its assessment, thereby training⁵⁴⁶ the cogitative power to assess positively in those matters pertaining to pleasure. The pain trains the cogitative power to assess something negatively which should be assessed negatively.⁵⁴⁷ Teaching consists largely in preparing the phantasms for the student, i.e. the one who is learning. In the case of infants, the phantasms must be prepared most concretely, i.e. sensorially with a stress on the sense of touch.
     From the ages of about two to four, the child is progressively able to make associations but the training by reward (pleasure) and punishment (pain) is the foundation for training of the child's conduct. However, the verbal dimension is able to dominate more during this stage since linguistic development rapidly advances. Until the child reaches the age of between four and six, when he is able to make basic moral judgments, reasoning with the child is fruitless because the child cannot understand the abstract notions sufficiently well to be able to understand and make the connections between what he is being told and what he is to do. During this stage, teaching can take on a more verbal approach but tactile teaching is still necessary. Visual abilities also increase during this stage, which is why visual training, such as block shapes and the like, can be used to train the child. Color discrimination, while done by the cogitative power in the infant stage, is grasped more by the child at this stage. Therefore, education at this stage should include a more sensory-based approach.

⁵⁴⁵A normal parent will begin to detect when the child is able to make the association of pain with avoidance. [How have you detected this in your child?] For some children, they may be able to make these associations as early as nine or ten months, other children may take up to a year. [So spanking should begin at 1 yr, at the latest.]
⁵⁴⁶Since the child cannot engage in the voluntary, habits cannot be developed at this stage. it is analogous to training an animal. [Someone mentioned that on this thread.]
⁵⁴⁷Two observations are in order. The first is that moral, the punishment (pain) that is inflicted must always be ordered toward the child's physical, psychological, moral and spiritual well-being. Excessive punishments (abuse) or punishments which are not rooted in reason are immoral since they can cause harm to the child. The second is that rightly ordered punishments are actually necessary for the cogitative power's proper development. [Tell this to modern man who denies original sin and its effects!] If the cogitative power is not trained in this way, the child can be affected for life, if that kind of training persists, because the child will not grasp the painful or negative aspects of reality properly and thereby will end up irresponsible in his conduct, because he will not grasp the painful realities of immoral conduct. [Viz., the child will live in la-la land.] Moreover, God himself teaches us through Scripture that parents must discipline their child so that he does not end up in hell; see Proverbs 23:13-14 ["Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell."]. As much as modern psychology might like to think that we should never punish a child, reality and God tell us otherwise.