Punishment and reward are not just flip sides of the same coin, they're totally different. You should definitely cut down on punishment and increase the praising of the positive. This is a classroom management trick that i used to use too. It actually works relatively quickly. And you can imagine that those little moments of praise, the kids don't forget it. They clearly are sortof moved by it. Ind know, bad is stronger than good in some ways, but there is something about that approval that you get that one could argue that that is stronger than being criticised.