Previous theoretical and empirical work has shown knowledge and application of disciplinary practices are not innate qualities of parenting. Rather, disciplinary practices appear more related to one's experience. The goal of parental discipline is to change children's behavior, often with little regard for the feelings generated by the experience.

A phenomenologic hermeneutical inquiry explored how children understood and described their lived experience of parental discipline. Two research questions guided the inquiry: "What is the meaning of parental discipline for children?" and "In what ways do children describe the experience of parental discipline?".

Phenomenology allowed for the knower and the known to be integral, and the researcher's horizon of meaning was never separated from the inquiry. However, the researcher bracketed presuppositions and avoided prejudging the data by carefully centering in a meditative fashion as the initial insights from the data emerged. As the co-constituted summative themes and metaphors emerged, a deep engagement and reflection with the data occurred to arrive at a new unity of meaning.

The research was conducted in three small, northern Colorado communities. Fifteen nine- and ten-year old, middle-class, Caucasian children participated. To illuminate the phenomenon from the children's perspective, multiple data generation techniques were used including individual and group interviews and art work with explanations.

Children revealed that experiencing parental discipline elicited a spectrum of feelings. The central themes were feelings of mad and sad regardless of the disciplinary methods experienced. These feelings were intensely described and necessitated diverse coping behaviors. Less acceptable than sad behavior, mad behavior often had to be concealed from parents and coped with in imaginative ways. Children thought they learned from parental discipline and imagined negative outcomes if parents did not discipline. Discipline practices were thought to be learned from one's parents, and the children imagined they would discipline their own children exactly as they had been disciplined.

The meaning generated in this study provided a new vista of the parental discipline experience from the children's perspective that was metaphorically captured as a picnic spoiled. Recommendations for parents, nurses, and other health care service providers were made.