The best method I have found is twofold based on the age of the child. Have you seen the movie "ground hog day?" It involves doing the same thing over and over with small tweaks and adjustment until you get it right.
What we do is this. With a younger child we take them to their room, explain to them what they did that was inappropriate and then offer up a "do over" For a do over to work it must truly seem that the first time never happened. For a child that is 7-9ish I send them to their room, ask them to think about what they did wrong and offer up a do over.
For the teenage years, I have only found one way to make this work. First, NEVER send a teenager to their room. They will gladly lay on their bed for hours content in the knowledge that they are not doing whatever it is you wanted. They've won! Instead, we use manual labor..... I give them some sort of menial labor, like pulling weeds to do while they contemplate what they did wrong and how to correct it. They have to come to me with their reasoning and if I truly believe that they put some thought in and want to correct their error, I will give them the almighty do over. If I think it's smoke and mirrors, back to the weeds! There is nothing in the world that teenagers hate worse that manual labor. I've been a foster parent for almost 10 years and i've had 82 children. I have seen every conceivable attitude and this works.
Never, ever put any emotion into this! It must be done in a very matter of fact, it is what it is sort of way. It will take a few times but once they realize you are serious and that they can't push your buttons, you'll be surprised how quickly they begin to turn around.
