goes to new member amycoral:

"I think many parents who are baffled by their kids' behavior are unaware of how inconsistent they are as parents. I can't tell you how many parents I hear say, "Do we need to go home???" as a threat and they know, the kids know, I know, everybody knows they are not going home. And then they say, "Sheesh, I can't control that kid" -- but they never actually gave the kid a negative consequence, they just threatened and caved."

I find this to be a very true and rarely followed parenting no-brainer. Don't threaten what you won't follow through with - you just take steps backward, not forward, in teaching your children to take you seriously.