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On parental discipline
Aug. 1st, 2006 11:31 pmSo I've been getting into a number of arguments today about the proper ways to discipline children and teach them how to behave. I've read through Mace's posts and the comments on them. And I've been thinking.
Here's where I stood before: Children need to be disciplined from time to time. This happens by associating something unpleasant with the doing of something bad. One of the possible unpleasant things is physical punishment. There are a large number of other forms of punishment, such as isolation ("go to your room!" or other forms of timeouts), denial of something (favorite toys, allowance money, going places, food, etc.), stern lectures, etc. To my mind, physical punishment (spankings) are perfectly valid methods in the list of choices. Which discipline method is used should depend on what the child is like. Not everything will apply equally well to all children.
As with any tool, there are ways to use discipline methods properly and also ways to abuse them. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological manipulation and torment, neglect and abandonment, etc. can all happen. It all depends on how and why the parent is doing them.
However, I've never had children of my own. Nor do I spend much time around them. I tend to relate better to teenagers overall, because by that point they have reached a level of maturity that I can speak to. So I don't really know about children younger than that.
In light of a comment on Mace's last post, I started thinking over my own childhood again. How exactly was I ever disciplined? What worked on me? Well, the more I think about it, the harder it is to answer that, because ... I don't think I was ever disciplined properly. Nothing worked. I remember being punished a lot, but I can't think of a single example where I actually learned anything. Why?
Well, let's start with physical punishment. First of all, you're not supposed to hit the child out of anger and frustration, because that's parental venting, not parental teaching. My parents had a tendency to go after me with a stick (any stick within easy grabbing distance; could've been a toy, could've been a broom, could've been wooden or plastic or metal...), and sometimes they left bruises. I usually knew why they were mad, but the fact that they were trying to beat the crap out of me mostly just made me resent them. Which was obvious in my eyes, and which just made them want to beat me all the more. This is not, to my mind, the way it's supposed to work.
At one point they remarked that my sister escaped punishment because she would capitulate almost immediately and burst into tears. I wasn't interested in that kind of emotional manipulation, even knowing that it was possible. Tried it once, it worked, left a bad aftertaste. So I took the severe beatings instead, and kept my sense of integrity.
When we were very young, there was the "throw out of the house" ploy. Basically, if we were too loud talking to each other after we had allegedly gone to bed, my father would show up and try to throw us out of the house. He would pick us up bodily, and we would cling to doorways and such while pleading for mercy. We would capitulate before he actually reached the back door. This didn't work for long, though, because we eventually caught on that he was never serious. My sister says that he actually did put us outside once, and locked the back door, whereupon we ran to the front door and had to beg our way back in.
There was one other time when I was older (7 or 8, I think), and got put out with the trash. I forget what I did, but I distinctly remember standing there in my winter coat, waiting for the trashman to take me away. When the trashman finally arrived, he thought I was standing out there to greet him and he let me back inside, whereupon I snuck back up to my room while my father was busy talking to him... I don't recall whether I learned anything that time, either.
Then there were the stern lectures. Or the yelling, to be more accurate. And the taking away of things. I remember a few times where I actually tried to tell my mother directly how it made me feel, that all it was doing was making me think of ways to circumvent her, and what exactly would have the desired effect. Of course, all that did was make her more angry. :p And sadly, I can no longer remember the details anymore, other than the fact that I was right and still am. :p
And then in my teen years, there was the return of the "throw out of the house" ploy. I was threatened with eviction and homelessness rather frequently. It never actually happened, but in the back of my mind I was always trying to plan for contingencies in case it ever did.
I guess overall, what I really wanted (and needed) was good, clear explanations of everything. My parents never explained anything to me, discipline or otherwise. Everything was "you're too young to understand and/or care about that." And the older I got, the less clear things became.
Oh wait. I do remember what I said to my mother. I was talking about strategic rewards. Reward for good behavior instead of punish for bad. She didn't go for that one, because she has a philosophy that you don't reward people for doing what they're supposed to do. I guess in practice, what happened was that we were ignored if we were behaving, and given attention (even negative attention) when misbehaving.
And now that I think about that one some more, that makes sense. There was a point in time when I was around seven or so, when my parents suddenly started saying "We're not going to spoil you anymore!" I still don't know where that came from. Maybe someone important said something to them that hit home. All I remember, though, is that all the love went out of the family around then. They stopped caring about anything I did that was positive and right.
I kept a lot of journals as a teenager. Most other people seem to have problems with parents snooping, reading it while the teenager isn't looking, etc. Sometimes being emotionally blackmailed as a result. I didn't have those problems. My parents didn't even know I had them. They just didn't care about me as a person, at all. All they wanted was for me to play the role of "good kid" and that was all.
Anyway. To see if I can come up with some kind of organized conclusion to all this, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm about as far from being a good person to ask about disciplining children as one can get. I sure didn't see any good examples of discipline when I was a child, and I'm not a parent now. And therefore, perhaps none of my opinions should be viewed as valid. Instead I'll go into "be quiet and listen mode" for the duration.
Here's where I stood before: Children need to be disciplined from time to time. This happens by associating something unpleasant with the doing of something bad. One of the possible unpleasant things is physical punishment. There are a large number of other forms of punishment, such as isolation ("go to your room!" or other forms of timeouts), denial of something (favorite toys, allowance money, going places, food, etc.), stern lectures, etc. To my mind, physical punishment (spankings) are perfectly valid methods in the list of choices. Which discipline method is used should depend on what the child is like. Not everything will apply equally well to all children.
As with any tool, there are ways to use discipline methods properly and also ways to abuse them. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological manipulation and torment, neglect and abandonment, etc. can all happen. It all depends on how and why the parent is doing them.
However, I've never had children of my own. Nor do I spend much time around them. I tend to relate better to teenagers overall, because by that point they have reached a level of maturity that I can speak to. So I don't really know about children younger than that.
In light of a comment on Mace's last post, I started thinking over my own childhood again. How exactly was I ever disciplined? What worked on me? Well, the more I think about it, the harder it is to answer that, because ... I don't think I was ever disciplined properly. Nothing worked. I remember being punished a lot, but I can't think of a single example where I actually learned anything. Why?
Well, let's start with physical punishment. First of all, you're not supposed to hit the child out of anger and frustration, because that's parental venting, not parental teaching. My parents had a tendency to go after me with a stick (any stick within easy grabbing distance; could've been a toy, could've been a broom, could've been wooden or plastic or metal...), and sometimes they left bruises. I usually knew why they were mad, but the fact that they were trying to beat the crap out of me mostly just made me resent them. Which was obvious in my eyes, and which just made them want to beat me all the more. This is not, to my mind, the way it's supposed to work.
At one point they remarked that my sister escaped punishment because she would capitulate almost immediately and burst into tears. I wasn't interested in that kind of emotional manipulation, even knowing that it was possible. Tried it once, it worked, left a bad aftertaste. So I took the severe beatings instead, and kept my sense of integrity.
When we were very young, there was the "throw out of the house" ploy. Basically, if we were too loud talking to each other after we had allegedly gone to bed, my father would show up and try to throw us out of the house. He would pick us up bodily, and we would cling to doorways and such while pleading for mercy. We would capitulate before he actually reached the back door. This didn't work for long, though, because we eventually caught on that he was never serious. My sister says that he actually did put us outside once, and locked the back door, whereupon we ran to the front door and had to beg our way back in.
There was one other time when I was older (7 or 8, I think), and got put out with the trash. I forget what I did, but I distinctly remember standing there in my winter coat, waiting for the trashman to take me away. When the trashman finally arrived, he thought I was standing out there to greet him and he let me back inside, whereupon I snuck back up to my room while my father was busy talking to him... I don't recall whether I learned anything that time, either.
Then there were the stern lectures. Or the yelling, to be more accurate. And the taking away of things. I remember a few times where I actually tried to tell my mother directly how it made me feel, that all it was doing was making me think of ways to circumvent her, and what exactly would have the desired effect. Of course, all that did was make her more angry. :p And sadly, I can no longer remember the details anymore, other than the fact that I was right and still am. :p
And then in my teen years, there was the return of the "throw out of the house" ploy. I was threatened with eviction and homelessness rather frequently. It never actually happened, but in the back of my mind I was always trying to plan for contingencies in case it ever did.
I guess overall, what I really wanted (and needed) was good, clear explanations of everything. My parents never explained anything to me, discipline or otherwise. Everything was "you're too young to understand and/or care about that." And the older I got, the less clear things became.
Oh wait. I do remember what I said to my mother. I was talking about strategic rewards. Reward for good behavior instead of punish for bad. She didn't go for that one, because she has a philosophy that you don't reward people for doing what they're supposed to do. I guess in practice, what happened was that we were ignored if we were behaving, and given attention (even negative attention) when misbehaving.
And now that I think about that one some more, that makes sense. There was a point in time when I was around seven or so, when my parents suddenly started saying "We're not going to spoil you anymore!" I still don't know where that came from. Maybe someone important said something to them that hit home. All I remember, though, is that all the love went out of the family around then. They stopped caring about anything I did that was positive and right.
I kept a lot of journals as a teenager. Most other people seem to have problems with parents snooping, reading it while the teenager isn't looking, etc. Sometimes being emotionally blackmailed as a result. I didn't have those problems. My parents didn't even know I had them. They just didn't care about me as a person, at all. All they wanted was for me to play the role of "good kid" and that was all.
Anyway. To see if I can come up with some kind of organized conclusion to all this, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm about as far from being a good person to ask about disciplining children as one can get. I sure didn't see any good examples of discipline when I was a child, and I'm not a parent now. And therefore, perhaps none of my opinions should be viewed as valid. Instead I'll go into "be quiet and listen mode" for the duration.
