To Spank or not to spank

When it comes to disciplining our kids, the shelves of bookstores are cracking under the weight of the multitude of books already written on this controversial topic. And quite understandably so…some of todays parents grew up in a “children should be seen and not heard” household, while others were quite literally free to do as they please. In some cases it was not at all uncommon to get a hiding with a belt, where in other households there were no consequences for misbehaving at all…

Add to this the fact that; more often than not; the parental couple grew up in two totally different environments with regards to rules, boundaries and discipline. So the question is often not as simple as the mere: “should we or should we not spank our child…” it is way more complex. One parent feels that strict rules and discipline is the best way forward, while another parent might feel that this type of disciplining borders on physical abuse. And you can just imagine the marital conflict this causes!

Some books say, a firm hand when they are young, makes it easier when they are older, other books say, don’t crush their little spirits. Some say never ever humiliate a child by spanking him/her, others say a spanking now and again is sometimes all that is needed to open up those little ears…so the conundrum of this situation is apparent. 

“Armed”  with (or should I rather say; totally confused by?) all this information, parents flop around between different disciplining styles, feeling guilty when they do punish their children, feeling helpless and powerless when they have made the decision not to spank…

It is for this reason that I decided to add my two cents worth on the topic.

Firstly I think it is important to go and define “discipline”. What does it mean? Most of you might answer quite easily that disciplining your child means that you are punishing him/her for a wrong doing of some sort, in order to teach your child not to do it again…

But what if I told you that disciplining need not be defined as a punishment, not necessarily…? What if I were to suggest that disciplining your child means to simply guide your child in the right direction…

Just give me a moment to explain. As I always say to parents; take what I say as an opinion; an educated one yes, but it’s still an opinion…and use what you can and what you feel comfortable with. So I would like to challenge you to try and think a little differently about discipline…even if it’s just for the duration of reading this article.

Our task as parents is to raise healthy, well balanced adults; people who can think for themselves. Adults who understand that there is a consequence for every behaviour. I truly believe that life is almost 99{97fa4f7e3f90de63208dbf923bf7383c3bb584adf96b64fde63584d1e00110d6} dealing with the consequences of our actions and/or choices, the minute 1{97fa4f7e3f90de63208dbf923bf7383c3bb584adf96b64fde63584d1e00110d6} that is left over is the actual making of the decisions/choices themselves… It is therefore that I believe “to discipline” should be redefined as “teaching our children that there are logical consequences for our actions”…logical consequences.

Let me use a practical real life example from my own parental struggle; when our daughter was about three years old, we really had a hard time getting her to go to bed at the same time every night. We tried spanking, we tried threatening and I’m ashamed to admit; we even tried emotional manipulation. But after redefining discipline and realising that it’s all about logical consequences, here’s what happened.

As she adores bedtime stories, I went and bought a cheap little alarm clock. We explained to her that at 18h30 it’s “going to bedroom time” then we have some time to play a little, read a story, but at 19h00 it’s “lights out time”. The great thing about this alarm clock was that it would go off a second time, just in time to allow us enough time for the story. 

So; night number one everything worked according to plan; we went to her room at the first alarm, played around, and when the story time alarm went off, she refused to get into bed. Instead of starting a fight as I usually would have, I just calmly said: “so you are choosing to use your story time for playing?” she just went on joking around. I reminded her every now and again that she is “choosing” to use up her story time, but didn’t scream or fight. When the “bed time” alarm went off; I simply got up, gently picked her up, calmly put her in bed and said good night. Of course she then wanted her story. And I calmly reminded her that she chose to use up her story time.

Needless to say pandemonium broke loose in that room. She was crying terribly and refused to lie down. I kept on explain to her that this is what she “chose”. To make a long story short; I read her one page that night to get her to calm down, because “she didn’t realize what she was choosing”, but when that story alarm went off on day two; she was in bed with the book open in front of her. She “chose” her bed time story…

I didn’t have to spank here. I didn’t have to scream and shout and go crazy only to feel so guilty later on that I cried myself to; teaching her that life is about decisions and consequences worked; and is still, for the most part, working well for us.

So I challenge you to go and rethink your disciplining style. Is it truly teaching your child a logical consequence to life decisions…or is it merely teaching your child not to get caught…? 

 

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