re: How do you know how hard to go on your kids?

Always ask nicely the first time.
Then get more firm.
There must be Consequences, even slight like time out or standing with nose on the wall.
The line is drawn at disrespect. Draw it vividly.
Spanking should be rare, as a last resort, ideally.

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I have a 3 and 5 year old boys. I try to remember that this is their first time doing a lot of things that we ask them to do after we show them

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Make sure you teach them to hold that flashlight steady and where to aim it and know their wrenches, especially the 10 mm, so they hand you the correct one.
Make damn sure they know the difference between pliers, channel locks and vice grips!!

I found the most difficult thing is dealing with them in a vacuum. By that, I mean not letting the rest of your world impact the way you treat your kid in a given moment. Your wife and other adults tend to know when you are having a stressful day and normally give you some leeway and understanding since next week they will likely have "a day". Particularly, younger children are completely unaware of those outside pressures.

Kids are also a puzzle, just like adults, the same tone and disciplinary techniques don't work the same on all of them.

Set the standard.
Maintain the standard
Do not deviate or lower the standard.

Be hard, but fair.

If you are yelling at your kid because they are missing shots during a basketball game, you're going too hard. If you are disciplining them because they are doing something wrong, you are not going too hard. Don't over think it. You asking them/telling to do something and them not obeying is them doing something wrong. Just make sure you aren't asking them to do ridiculous things.

On the otherside, make sure you have fun with them and also tell them you're proud of them when they do things well. I tell my kids "thank you" when they obey. I want them to know I appreciate their obedience, and I also want them to mirror my behavior of being thankful.

You go hard on them. They won’t make it to the big leagues if you go easy on them. No. Days. Off. Get their arse to batting cage every day. They say they don’t feel well? They sure as shite won’t feel well after you spank their arse. They say they have homework? Remind them Derek Jeter doesn’t have homework. They say they rather play with friends? Tell them their friends will flame out in A ball never make it to the show

Your first mistake coming here for advice from people with no jobs and posting all day long.

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Children benefit from strong discipline, but it can't be 24/7 365. When they screw up and make mistakes there has to be a repercussion that fits the instance.

They will hate you -as you had hate for your parents from time to time, but it was child hate. Children learn to grow out of this naturally.

I agree with losing your sh!t every now and then because it lets them know they are screwing up.

Also, it cannot be stressed enough, these are not your friends, they are your responsibility. You have a responsibility to turn this child into the best adult they can be.

If you do not prepare them with experiencing let down, discomfort, not getting their way they, failure will end up lost.

But don't forget to reward and praise them when they actually do something worthy of it.

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This is all great.

I will add that once you discipline them and they calm down, talk to them calmly about WHY they got disciplined. Make them verbally say what they did wrong and what happened to them.

A little philosophical here, but there is a notion of "freedom" not being "anything you want" but freedom that comes from living within a well-defined set of rules/structure/limits intended to make our lives well-ordered and fruitful. I think that's probably a pretty good way to look at raising boys, and likely one that if done well will limit how many choices you have to make as far as being hard/lenient in discrete acts of discipline.

For me: Pretty simple - don't act out of emotion and follow through. Following the first will keep you out of trouble with the second a lot of the time.

For them: I honestly look at it pretty academically - I come down hard and quickly when it's a genuine, serious safety risk. Same for disrespect to mom/dad/others, cruelty, flagrant disobedience or dishonesty. I'll let them fight each other or run around wild, until it crosses into one of those territories.

I think the hardest area is anger/outburst/etc. stuff that you know is the product of being a kid, learning to communicate, etc. That can be tough to gauge, because sometimes the behavior is pretty bad but if you're sober about it you know it's not just them being awful, they're frustrated and don't know how to handle it yet. Candidly, I don't view that as disciplinary stuff unless it's not improving. I just counsel and move on.

Person who said apologize when you get it wrong is spot on.

This usually works without having to go hard.