No, I’m not talking about the book, sorry. I’ve gotten a good taste recently in how discipline and punishment work for children. What I’ve noticed is that we have it backwards these days. Parents and all adults have grown into a mentality that punishment is a horrible thing and if you ever punish a child you are mean and that child will hate you forever. This is simply untrue. Children are looking for your love and approval. Instead of punishment, we now threaten and yell. These do absolutely nothing positive.
I find it funny that we are okay with yelling and screaming at a kid (which does nothing except make the child feel worthless), but we think it’s terrible to give a child consequences and perhaps make him miss a fun trip or activity (which can only make a child learn that there are consequences). All our empty threats to children are only telling them that they can walk all over us. They can break a rule, get yelled at and threatened to be punished, grow cold toward us because of that yelling, and then act sweet for a few moments to avoid consequence. If this is their childhood, how are they going to react to getting their first ticket? There is no being let off the hook for that.
Instead I propose that we lay out rules and clear punishments for breaking those rules. If the severe punishment comes you can tell a child that he had however many chances and still didn’t change. The child has no one to blame but himself and can see his first, second, and then final punishment. If we do this without yelling at a child, he will only realize that you didn’t react with anger, and that the only way to avoid the punishment in the future is to change. We also cannot be afraid to make a child lose something big, a trip, a prom night, a fun activity, a year of driving. All these things, while sad that a child missed out, will not destroy their lives, much less will two days without their cell phone, or no TV for a night.
This world needs children to be raised properly not for its own good, but for the good of the kids, that they may grow up to be the wonderful human beings they’re meant to be.
