Hitting Children - Child abuse or discipline?
Firstly, I am
not stating anything about beating children, I am talking about hitting children in the name of discipline. Does spankings teach children right from wrong, or does it just cause fear and pain?
I think that fear is a key factor to disciplining children. A suitable punishment and a firm 'no' will teach children not to do the thing again. Learning how to swim puts a fear in a child to go for the surface when their air is gone from their lungs. Fear help creates common sense and instinct. These create the actions and thoughts in our lives. But I disagree with spanking children as a punishment.
While fear teaches us to avoid pain, it also teaches up to hate what causes it. Fear and hate are inter-related. Why do many people hate spiders? Because they fear them. Fear teaches hate and hate can only lead to bad stuff.
I think parents should use time-outs with children, proportional to the child's age. And instead of making such a big deal out of the bad things, make a bigger deal about the good things so the child is more likely to want praise instead of being punished.
I was hit as a child [as a form of punishment] and I didn't learn from it. All it made me do was fear my parents. As my parents didn't explain what I had done wrong, they just told me that I'd done wrong, [sometimes it's obvious what I did, but sometimes I didn't know] and that confused and frightened me. However, it didn't deter me from my wrong doings.
Now I've grown up, my dad just screams and scream at me. And this scares me alot. I don't agree with his forms of punishment, as he feels that he has to be in control of everything so if something goes wrong he screams at it. He, again, doesn't explain things to me, because at the moment I'm trying my best to do things right, but I don't do things the right way for him. It scares me alot, it has made me hate him and made me feel so bad I wanted to die. [No sympathy there btw.]
I also think it's morally unethical. If teachers aren't allowed to punish naughty children by violence, why should parents have the right to hit their children.
So what's your opinion? Were you ever hit as a child [as a form of punishment]?
- Rexy