What is your child learning from the spanking they receive?
Nov 07, 2005
My neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter Amina, came shivering and crying helplessly. “Mummy is threatening to kill me if she gets hold of me tonight,†she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
My neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter Amina, came shivering and crying helplessly. “Mummy is threatening to kill me if she gets hold of me tonight,†she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She explained how she had accidentally knocked her mother’s bottle of glue and spilled it on the floor. Since she was so scared of the mother’s wrath, she disguised the evidence by moping the floor and hiding the mop cloth. Even after pleading for forgiveness, Amina received a blinding slap that sent her running to the neighbourhood for help.
This incident calls for close analysis before we can draw any logical conclusion. Does this girl deserve a ‘death sentence’ from her mother even after she has asked for forgiveness?
Would you define this incident as ‘misbehaviour’? As much as it is not acceptable to knock items around, we must remember that there are incidents, which are not a result of a child’s misbehaviour. Knocking a bottle of glue could happen to anybody including a mother! If the mother herself spilled the glue, I guess it wouldn’t be branded ‘misbehaviour’ but a ‘mere accident.’ We shouldn’t spank children for knocking things accidentally because such incidents are not ‘misbehaviour.’
Punishment is only justified in exceptional cases where the child intentionally breaks or knocks down items. Children also need to understand that even what they do accidentally has consequences that they cannot escape. Does the child need a hot slap to understand this? But what is wrong with a spanking? After all weren’t you also spanked at some point in life? Spanking entails more than you think. Did you know that the lessons the child receives from spanking are not those probably intended? Instead of learning that whatever they did is morally wrong, the messages the child receives are ‘it is okay to hit those who are younger than you,’ and ‘violence is an acceptable way to solve problems.’
Training a human being is not a simple task and discipline entails more than holding a stick or screaming your lungs out. Rather than strengthening the child’s moral conscience, the ritual of caning and slapping at leisure might lead to resentment, resistance and revenge.
Discipline doesn’t mean slapping a child at the slightest opportunity. There are instances where the child needs no stick to know that they have made a mistake. This is a sense of moral conscience that helps the child differentiate right from wrong. It is your duty to strengthen this sense. Children should learn that their actions, intended or not, have consequences. One way of recognising this is by learning to apologise whenever they go wrong.
However, apology shouldn’t be stretched beyond its limits. Making the same mistake daily with an intention of using the weapon of apology is not acceptable. Mistakes should be used as learning points. Teach a child who knocks things to be careful and avoid clumsiness.
Children who own up their wrongs responsibly have acquired a sense of moral conscience. You might quash that sense by insisting on punishment.
Issuing threats whenever a child makes a mistake creates a child who shifts blames or looks for excuse to defend their wrong doings. If your child finds it difficult to face their wrongs and apologize then there is something wrong with your parenting style.
Making a mistake is not criminal, we all do, The true measure of moral conscience is the ability to own up the mistake, face the consequences and learn from it. Remember, the only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
jwagwau@newvision.co.ug 077631032
She explained how she had accidentally knocked her mother’s bottle of glue and spilled it on the floor. Since she was so scared of the mother’s wrath, she disguised the evidence by moping the floor and hiding the mop cloth. Even after pleading for forgiveness, Amina received a blinding slap that sent her running to the neighbourhood for help.
This incident calls for close analysis before we can draw any logical conclusion. Does this girl deserve a ‘death sentence’ from her mother even after she has asked for forgiveness?
Would you define this incident as ‘misbehaviour’? As much as it is not acceptable to knock items around, we must remember that there are incidents, which are not a result of a child’s misbehaviour. Knocking a bottle of glue could happen to anybody including a mother! If the mother herself spilled the glue, I guess it wouldn’t be branded ‘misbehaviour’ but a ‘mere accident.’ We shouldn’t spank children for knocking things accidentally because such incidents are not ‘misbehaviour.’
Punishment is only justified in exceptional cases where the child intentionally breaks or knocks down items. Children also need to understand that even what they do accidentally has consequences that they cannot escape. Does the child need a hot slap to understand this? But what is wrong with a spanking? After all weren’t you also spanked at some point in life? Spanking entails more than you think. Did you know that the lessons the child receives from spanking are not those probably intended? Instead of learning that whatever they did is morally wrong, the messages the child receives are ‘it is okay to hit those who are younger than you,’ and ‘violence is an acceptable way to solve problems.’
Training a human being is not a simple task and discipline entails more than holding a stick or screaming your lungs out. Rather than strengthening the child’s moral conscience, the ritual of caning and slapping at leisure might lead to resentment, resistance and revenge.
Discipline doesn’t mean slapping a child at the slightest opportunity. There are instances where the child needs no stick to know that they have made a mistake. This is a sense of moral conscience that helps the child differentiate right from wrong. It is your duty to strengthen this sense. Children should learn that their actions, intended or not, have consequences. One way of recognising this is by learning to apologise whenever they go wrong.
However, apology shouldn’t be stretched beyond its limits. Making the same mistake daily with an intention of using the weapon of apology is not acceptable. Mistakes should be used as learning points. Teach a child who knocks things to be careful and avoid clumsiness.
Children who own up their wrongs responsibly have acquired a sense of moral conscience. You might quash that sense by insisting on punishment.
Issuing threats whenever a child makes a mistake creates a child who shifts blames or looks for excuse to defend their wrong doings. If your child finds it difficult to face their wrongs and apologize then there is something wrong with your parenting style.
Making a mistake is not criminal, we all do, The true measure of moral conscience is the ability to own up the mistake, face the consequences and learn from it. Remember, the only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
jwagwau@newvision.co.ug 077631032