I have two boys five and seven and they have the same rules but different punishments. The reason that is is because with my five year old you have to be very unique in your punishments because if you ground him from say a certain toy or game he don't really care. He will just move onto something else. Same way with the TV if I ground him from the TV it doesn't phase him.

Every children differs according to them and according to age and time. and i think the way of discipline matters not much but the goal should be same.

I think your sister-in-law is on the right path here. Each child has different interests, and react differently on certain punishments.

If you take away TV time from someone who isn't interested with TV anyway to start with, then you are fighting a lost battle.

So I think she's doing it correctly, punishing them differently is the way to go if each child have different interests.

No child should get a different treatment when it comes to dicipline. I think that it's a bit unfair. You should consider taking the same road with all your children. But then you have to think about what works for one doesnt necessarily work for all. I guess it just depends on your children.

It won't be unfair if each way of discipline suits each kid. If the same kind of discipline is given to all the kids (for example, TV time is taken away), some kids are bound not to get affected with the consequence as much as the other kids, and the kids who don't get affected that much would be the ones who have never enjoyed watching TV to start with, and so in this situation they would not even feel punished at all.

However, if the other group of kids who don't like watching TV are given a punishment suitable for them alone, then it would definitely make things fair for all children in the house and all kids would feel punished.