Post No.: 0628
Furrywisepuppy says:
Some parents treat other children way better than their own because they believe that being harsher on their own children will shape them better. But this risks harming their mental health. You want the best from your own children but you cannot force it out of them.
Of course it’s often the case that a parent knows better about what’s best for their child than that young and impulsive child does, thus a bit of parental ‘tough love’ is necessary (e.g. a child cannot be incessantly lazy just because they want to be so!) Yet children learn best when they direct their energies and learn via active play and intrinsic motivation rather than when being forced to do something or when they need to constantly suppress their own desires in accordance to someone else’s.
Punishments can create instant results of getting a child to behave – but although immediate or short-term results can give the impression that something is effective, they might cause overall harm or undesirable results in the long-term. Short-term gains but long-term costs are apparent in all kinds of contexts, but our intuitive instinct is to keep repeating something that gives us these short-term gains while we’re ignorant of the long-term costs, until it’s often too late. It’s like constantly drinking coffee to alleviate our sleep deprivation when it’d be better for our long-term health to figure out and stick to a better sleep routine. Thinking about the long-term consequences of our behaviours is an effortful, conscious and deliberate ‘system two’ activity.
The risks with corporal punishment, such as spanking or smacking, are substantial while the benefits are small. It’s less effective compared to rewarding desired behaviours, and it risks mental health problems in children. Banning spanking would just mean giving children the same rights as are granted to adults(!) Still, spanking by parents continues to be quite common. Different cultures differ greatly but mothers tend to spank more than fathers (probably only because they spend more time with their children on average), less-educated and/or less-affluent parents spank more, and boys are more likely to be spanked than girls.
Children who get smacked are more likely to turn to violence themselves, which might lead them to getting smacked even more, and so on. Although the data is only correlational thus it’s hard to say whether badly-behaving kids get spanked more or kids who get spanked more behave more badly, there’s no data that shows that kids improve in the long-term via corporal punishment – it is only associated with negative consequences. In the short-term, it can stop an undesired behaviour but in the long-term it can damage the parent-child relationship itself, the child will become more likely to exhibit greater aggressiveness regardless of their prior tendency to aggression, it increases the risk of them experiencing mental health problems, and they ultimately don’t become more compliant overall; hence parents who employ corporal punishments tend to regularly smack their children. So instead of reasoning that the smacking doesn’t work except momentarily, the parent reasons that the child is just constantly intentionally naughty i.e. if smacking truly worked, it would be used less and less because the child will have learnt their lesson from it!
Parents who employ corporal punishments and find that this doesn’t ram home a repeated lesson once and for all also often escalate the violence, such as going onto using objects or even throwing their child around (i.e. undeniable physical abuse).
Children will instead learn that it’s more important to not get caught misbehaving rather than to not misbehave, hence they’ll learn to lie more and even blame other people for things. They may even learn to fear their parents rather than love them depending on the frequency and severity of, and the reasons for, the corporal punishment, and the age of the child.
These are generalities thus not all children will exhibit the same deleterious outcomes – but is it a risk worth taking with your child’s life? For any chance of working, punishments need to be absolutely immediate and consistently delivered every single time a transgression is made anyway, which is unrealistic. Using aggression to try to reduce aggression is ironic too, and is a hypocritical and confusing ‘do as I say but not as I do’ form of parenting or leading by example! It may teach them that violence is a way to get them what they want, even in supposedly loving relationships.
Spanking doesn’t teach a child why something was wrong or what they should do instead – it just teaches them that they must behave in a certain way when you’re around; but once the threat of you is gone (you’re not there), they’ll have no reason to behave appropriately. So spanking – or hitting by another name – is overall ineffective at best and harmful at worst. Hitting causes more problems than it solves amongst adults too. Most professional bodies and the vast bulk of scientific literature disavow corporal punishment for children. Even more moderate techniques like time-outs only tend to work for the short-term but overall fail to produce desired long-term outcomes.
We can mistakenly believe that if a strategy isn’t working then it’s because we’re simply not doing it enough, rather than think we’re fundamentally wrong and should be doing it less or not at all (e.g. shouting more frequently or even louder, or hitting one’s child more or harder). Stressed-out parents can also think that there’s no other solution, for lacking other ideas. But there are other ways to discipline a child – these are skills that can be learnt. Or if you believe you have a particularly difficult child and that smacking them is the only way (you know of) to achieve (temporary) results then if they have such developmental problems that make them difficult then they should really be sympathised with even more because it’s not their fault, and therefore it’s even less appropriate to smack them!
So parents should use other forms of non-coercive or non-violent discipline – tie the child’s behaviours to natural or intrinsic consequences. If they don’t finish their homework then they cannot go out because they still have their homework to do. If they don’t eat their dinner then they’ll go hungry because they won’t get anything else to eat until the next meal time. If they don’t clean up their place at the table then they cannot leave to do something else until they’ve cleaned up.
The overall strategy is to use positive reinforcement or praising and rewarding them for desirable decisions, attitudes and behaviours. It’s more important to praise their attitudes and decisions (e.g. their efforts) rather than their outcomes because not all sensible decisions result in good outcomes, or vice-versa, but they should in the long run. You also don’t want to incentivise unfair cheating behaviours just so they can obtain the desired outcomes and thus the rewards.
The first step is to teach them, via repeated examples, that when they do something wrong or things are going badly then they can talk to you and you won’t get angry with them – this should encourage them to come clean and be honest with you and prevent any covering-up or lying as best as possible. Avoid telling them off in a judgemental way whenever you find out they’ve done something mean or bad – especially with a judgement that’s on their character rather than their behaviour (e.g. say, “That was a stupid thing you did” rather than, “You’re a stupid boy/girl for doing that”). This ensures their willingness to share with you again in the future. The more your children are open to and are talking with you, the more you can help them reshape their behaviours for the future. Woof!
The second step is to help them to imagine alternative ways to behave in the future i.e. talk less about what they shouldn’t have done and concentrate more on what they could or should do in the future instead. So wait until they’ve calmed down if they’re not already, give them some time alone so that everybody can compose themselves, then get together and work through what they could do differently if faced with the same situation again and/or how they could help prevent it from ever arising again. Do this regardless of whether you think they ‘deserve’ a smack or worse, because you must remember that the point of discipline isn’t to punish or seek revenge per se but to prevent the repeat of an undesired act in the future. (So if you’re a parent who has repeatedly smacked your child for a repeated offence – curb your own impulses and learn that smacking hasn’t and won’t ultimately work, and that your own discipline strategy is the failure rather than your child.)
Do this whilst providing plenty of positive incentives in the home to reinforce desired behaviours (e.g. the TV only comes on after homework or meals, dessert only comes if and when after they finish their dinner, videogames on the weekend depend on doing chores throughout the week). Maybe offer a couple of choices – all of which are equally acceptable (e.g. they can choose the order in which they want to complete the chores).
A (near) consistent and firm application of positive rewards like these – that are categorically removed when the desired behaviours aren’t complied with – are better ways to shape behaviour that don’t risk shutting down communication between your child and you. You might try not to give too much attention to minor misdemeanours i.e. if they’re not dangerous, unhealthy or too antisocial (e.g. minor infractions like non-personally-directed swearing).
Reward and model desired behaviours, remove temptations (prevention is best), and understand the developmental stages and the hormonal effects of puberty so that your expectations don’t exceed what’s realistic. Both parents must also be on the same page and be consistent in their discipline strategy towards their children too.
…So although both carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments, have their functions – positive reinforcement achieves improvement better than negative reinforcement or punishment. Punishment doesn’t need to mean corporal punishments but groundings or taking toys/rewards away anyway. Corporal punishment is a power trip, especially when administered without a fair trial. (Or if one genuinely thinks corporal punishment is the best teaching method then perhaps every adult should be hit for every similar kind of error they make too?!) It’s not usually accompanied with clear warnings that corporal punishment will be a consequence of a misbehaviour beforehand (read Post No.: 0385), or with explanations and reconciliation afterwards, either. It feeds the impulsive, lazy, instant gratification of the parent and doesn’t require much planning or effort compared to setting up potential rewards or preventative measures.
Spanking or smacking is different to a beating, but it’s still a failure of applying less violent parenting techniques (e.g. you don’t need to slap a hand away from a fire – just pull them back from it). Like it’s often said that violence is a failure of diplomatic skills in international affairs – violence is a failure of parenting skills in domestic affairs. A child’s failure is ultimately their parents’ failure. The use of corporal punishment is a failure of the parent. It risks side-effects like trauma, revenge or reduced love and respect from the child towards the parent.
The brain isn’t in an optimal state to learn whilst stressed too – thus attempting to instil lessons in children whilst they’re being corporally punished, or too soon afterwards, is tantamount to a waste of time; as those who find such lessons aren’t sticking in their children’s mind when they’re given in anger usually realise. It’s therefore a failure in the teaching rather than in the learning. It’d be the parent who needs to learn that corporal punishment isn’t working in the bigger picture. (So should parents be smacked into becoming better parents?(!))
Woof. Minds are most propitious to learning during a time when both teacher and pupil are calm.
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