Many
years ago, way before I ventured into the field of
parent education, my younger child once asked
me
,"Daddy, why do some
parents hit their
children?" Honestly, I
didn't really have the answer. How would I
know? I don't hit our children. But I know
from childhood experience that my mother was
pretty upset when she caned me. So,
wanting to look knowledgeable, I made up an answer
and explained that perhaps these parents were
angry with their children.
I thought that would satisfy
his curiosity, but I was wrong.
"So, is it okay to hit someone when
you are angry?", he further
inquired. Now, that made me felt like I was
walking on a slippery slope. Young children
are very smart these days, and they don't let you
off the hook easily. I decided to come clean
and confessed, "To tell you the truth, I don't
really know why some parents hit their children.
But I do know that it is not alright to hit
someone, regardless of whether you are angry or
not." He seemed pleased, and that bought me
some time to investigate further.
Over the years, I have become
an avid student of a topic called
'discipline.' I have read scores of
parenting literature on this subject, held
countless discussions with parents, and consulted
with several parenting experts. I studied
the findings from the multitude of research that
social scientists have done on corporal
punishment. I interviewed advocates of
corporal punishment (some of whom are deeply
religious and highly educated individuals) to
understand their point of view. This article
presents my key findings and
conclusions.
Firstly, I discovered that all
parents are driven by well-meaning
intentions. They seek to do what they think
is of the best interests for their children,
although some of their actions are hurtful.
The reasons that parents hit their children are
many, but there are generally two categories of
parents - those who reacted emotionally and those
who acted with conscious deliberation.
Hitting Children out of
Anger
The first group of parents
confessed that they hit their children out of
anger or frustration. In other words,
they had lost control of themselves, and often
felt remorseful subsequently. They
acknowledged that hitting children is
inappropriate, especially when they witnessed the
latter picking up aggressive behaviors after
them. They simply couldn't help it when
emotions run high.
Emotional reactions almost
always occur unconsciously, and most people have
some difficulty managing their emotions.
Parents are no exception. Some have learnt
to cope by walking away when they are upset, only
to return to their children when they have calmed
down. Others simply stopped when their
children have grown too big to be hit without
risking their physical retaliation. A
consistent observation from these parents is that
they don't justify their actions, for they
certainly don't feel good about hurting the
children they love.
Hitting Children as a Form of
Punishment
The second group comprises
practitioners and advocates of corporal
punishment. They come in different degrees
of zealousness about the merits of being strict or
harsh with children. Some swore by it,
citing that it works miraculously to get their
children to behave desirably, especially after
having exhausted other methods such as reasoning,
bribing, threatening, and nagging. Some
voiced that the adverse effects of corporal
punishment reported in research might be
overrated, as either they or their children had
turned out "fine." Many felt that children
must not be allowed to 'get away' with their wrong
doings unpunished for fear that the lack of
consequences will encourage further
misdeeds. Some quote the Holy Bible and
words of their religious leaders as the sources of
authority, while others claimed that even
parenting experts advocate the use of corporal
punishment.
What do they have in
common? Unlike the first group, these
parents had reasons for their actions. They
were able to justify the act of hurting children
with explanations that are 'valid' at least from
their unique perspectives. Although most of
them expressed that they felt somewhat 'bad' about
hitting their children, they sincerely believed it
was the 'right' thing to do.
The Right Thing Isn't
Necessary Alright
Now, just ask any five-year-old
if he or she thought whether hitting another
person is alright, and the answer is obviously
"No!" How is it that grown-ups who are
supposedly wiser and more experienced thought
otherwise? They know instinctively that
hitting children is undesirable, yet they do
it anyway. The absurdity illustrated
by the following words from Haim Ginott:
When a child hits a
child, we call it aggression.
When a child
hits an adult, we call it hostility.
When an
adult hits an adult, we call it assault.
When
an adult hits a child, we call it
discipline.
What is it that the innocent
young child sees that these adults don't? Daniel
Goleman (author of Emotional
Intelligence) has an explanation. In
his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The
Psychology of Self-Deception, Goleman
attributes such phenomenon to what he termed a
lacuna, meaning a 'blind spot' that escapes our
field of attention or awareness. He suggests
that somewhere in the human mind lies a mechanism
of self-deception that filters out the facts that
we don't want to know, without even us
knowing.
And just as any driver would
know, ignoring our blind spots is dangerous and
predisposes us to possible disasters. In
parenting, the stakes could be too high to handle.
Some people lose their children, while others
struggle with daily conflicts that deprive them of
the intrinsic joy that parenting was supposed to
bring.
Now, if you fall into the
second category of parents that I had described
above, consider examining the possible blindspots
by reading the
5 Common
Misconceptions About Discipline and Punishment
with an open mind, and form your judgment
thereafter. If you're in the first category,
you may wish to pick up Goleman's bestseller
Emotional Intelligence and hone your
emotional management skills.
Whichever category you fall
into, let me invite you to support a nationwide
movement to help parents to stop hurting children
in the name of discipline, and start loving them
through the practice of non-punitive discipline by
making a
PLEDGE
TODAY!
[By Kenny Toh, Founder of
Institute of Advanced
Parentology]
Positive Discipline
