Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Spare the rod, raise a rioter
This article is a reaction to claims that the recent riots in the UK would not have happened had parents used physical punishment to discipline their children. Are many of the problems with young people today caused by a lack of dscipline at home, or are other factors more important? Are you for or against the corporal punishment of children? When is the line between discipline and abuse crossed, and how can laws best prevent the latter? What do you think about this writer’s arguments against spanking/smacking?
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I would ask, where is the border between hitting a child as a means of upbringing and an effect of uncontrolled fury? I think it the .2004 Children Act which banned "unreasonable physical chastisement" states is rather vaguely. But it was defined as the temporary reddening of the skin, if use of common sense doesn’t work.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it is generally accepted that such step should be avoided as long as possible, I admit that physical punishment is sometimes the last only means of implementing any discipline. Based on my personal experience I would say that most people usually see toddlers as the most innocent beings, who are too young to apply any concept of upbringing on them. Majority of parents is oblivious of the first and most important phase of creating a child’s character. As many psychologists would probably agree, little kids are extremely egoistic. At the age of 3 children start to realize their own self and it is the time when the parents should start shaping their personality. Children need to be given the right ideals and mainly role-models at their early age when they learn mostly by observing. Therefore I think that it is necessary for children to know the authority and limits of their behaviour, though it must be enforced in a wise, justified way.
On the other hand, there is the example of children growing up in an environment full of violence and hate. They could come from non-functioning families where physical punishment was misappropriated. Those kids even unconsciously take their models of behaviour and would ultimately show angry attitude toward others. So either are the rioters spoiled children not used to anybody taking their hand on them or they are unbalanced individuals with unhappy childhood. And I would say that the latter is a more probable reason for any riots.
Well, this article is a reaction to a statement that claims that the riots in London were caused bacause parents can no longer hit their children. First, I would just like to say that I do not see any reasonable connection of bad parenting to the riots. By saying this, you would think that the riots were caused only because the kids are undisciplined. I think, that the problem of the riots can not be simplified to this. After all, how do you justify the riots in the past that were in a time where beating was an ordinary method of parenting?
ReplyDeleteI agree with the author that there is nobody that would advocate hitting their children as a mean of parenting. I do not think that people should reject the idea because they have been indoctrinated to do so. However, I think that people should reject the idea after they have thought about it. By teaching the kids violence or oppression, it is likely that they will use it too.
First of all, I think hitting (as in inducing physical pain) a child as a disciplinary action is an austere, harsh and cruel manner of solving issues and should be only done as a last resort. Parents have to consider and attempt to use all non-violent methods when disciplining a child, if the child persists in being naughty then it would be justified to take further actions. However, these non-violent methods are ultimately ineffective with children in the very early ages, as they can’t comprehend the level of seriousness of the issue.
ReplyDeleteThis is a rather controversial topic due to the fact that the disciplinary actions are adapted to the age of the child and the severity of the problem. In order to explain this furthermore, let’s say that a child would steal a candy from a store, there are two different scenarios for this; one being that the child is very young and doesn’t really understand what he/she did and then there is the case when the adolescent is old enough to distinguish between the basics of right and wrong. If it was the first case then I would attempt to explain what was wrong with what he/she did utilizing hand gestures, facial expressions and other body language to emphasize the seriousness of the problem. However if the case is the latter, I would warn them that if they were to do it again then there could be severe consequences like for example prohibiting some luxuries such as computers or television. There is one statement in the article the author mentioned: “If I were to hit one of my children, I would be role-modeling the exact opposite of my belief structure, and my "boundaries", as a result, would be shifting and meaningless. “, with which I agree to a full extent. Punishing a child in a physical manner might project over time, the child could also interpret it in a wrong way for example he/she might begin to think that they themselves can punish someone physically when they things turn out differently than the way they wanted to.
All in all, it is my opinion that the choice of disciplinary punishment depends on the seriousness of the problem and respectively, the age of the child who perpetrated the issue. However, physical punishment should be a form of highest punishment which is used only severe cases or in exceptional cases like young minors to whom I think a symbolic spanking would be justified to ensure the understanding of the issue.
“If parents were allowed to hit their children, the riots would not have happened”. From my point of view, that is a very strong comment bound to spark a reaction from the public, but when considered carefully, you can tell that they are in fact wise words. Generalizing, I would say that the average British male between the ages of 15 and 25 has not been taught enough through classical methods such as corporal punishment while he was still young and will therefore lack an important sense of respect and discipline that a polite and educated person of that age should possess.
ReplyDeleteThe values induced by this form of being brought up are then found to be lacking and that lack can then lead to events such as the ones that happened around England last year. Needless to say, excessive violence towards children is absolutely unacceptable and in no way would help prevent the riots and rampages that happened. On the other - hand such behavior would only shape into a teenager or young adult that is overly violent or extremely timid and mentally unstable. Laws and restriction on this matter would be rather pointless and hard to support because most child abuse by parents happens behind the closed doors of the homes and unless the victims seeks help the authorities know nothing about such a crime even taking place.
From where I see it the events were mostly a result of mistreatment at home as well as effects such as peer pressure at school. Overall, I think this is a meaningful article and I believe that smacking children and other similar forms of corporal punishment are well inside the borders of behavior that should be accepted and even supported.
The issue of smacking or spanking children is controversial. Parents and psychologist have differing opinions on this problematic. Every parent raises their children depending on their own specified limits and boundaries.
ReplyDeleteEverything depends on the parents’ way of teaching their child to obey them. Some may “help“ themselves by smacking their kids. Currently, parents are allowed by law to mete "reasonable chastisement'' on their children, providing smacking does not leave a mark or bruise.
I don’t exactly agree with the author, which claims that smacking children should not be allowed. In my opinion, smacking when used as the last resort by parents that have become particularly angry isn't great, but surely legislating against something so subjective is dangerous. Sometimes when a child argues against your authority, parents may have no other choice than to smack the child. As long as the smacking does not cause any harm to him/her, and the child actually deserves it, I consider smacking acceptable. It is a way of teaching children discipline, and helps the parents to earn authority. I consider it very hard to make a child gain respect and make him/her to obey their parents only by verbal stimuli. Without children being raised with discipline, they will not be discipline when being adults. This is most likely to cause problems for the adult person.
However, I don’t think that children should be snapped or slapped. If adults have no control over temper, no thought for the consequences of their behavior and don't see their children as real people with feelings and rights, they may hit them it they disobey. Therefore, it is important for the parents to try to stay calm so that they don’t loose their temper, even though it may be hard. There are more forms of punishments, and physical is not considered to be the best one.