Well, I thought I'd said my peace yesterday on this topic but it seems not. I had a 14 year old with me today to help me babysit my little one. She loves kids so I've asked her to come play with Ky while I get some work done.
We were cleaning up after lunch where Ky had thrown his food on the floor as usual. The whole food throwing and playing thing is getting better but still food ends up on the floor towards the end of the meal. Earlier, she had seen me telling Ky sternly how I was not happy with him throwing his food on the floor and continuing on with whatever I was doing. During our washing up, she asked, "do you give Ky a smack on the hand at all just to let him know that it's wrong to throw food on the floor?" I said no and explained that I don't think it would make any difference. He's got the point that I wasn't happy. He's not dumb.
She's a really good girl - well mannered, polite and confident. She is the youngest of 4 and following her older siblings do what they do had resulted in her maturing quicker for her age. She cleans and organizes Ky's toys for me when she's here. She's like her mum who keeps her home very neat and tidy. Her parents are school teachers and advocates smacking for discipline. So, why would I not smack my child if this near perfect child is the outcome of being disciplined by the rod?
Well, although she and her eldest brother are the perfect children every household would want in their family, her other 2 siblings are not. The thing is, it's not the rod that is why she has turned out the way she has, it's her personality. Both her and her eldest brother have the same endearing personality that no. 2 and 3 do not and therefore faced the rod a lot more. They have no respect for their parents, rebel and do not have close, open relationships with either of their parents. In fact, no.2 & 3 are oten talked about by their parents as difficult children. So, has the rod helped? I don't think so. I think it's caused more of a wedge than anything.
There are many ways of tackling a problem situation or a problem child. There's distraction for the younger child. Witholding or confiscating their favourite toy, sending the child to a naughty corner or room, tackling the root problem of their bad behaviour are other alternatives rather than resorting to the rod at first instance.
At the end of the day, what parents choose to do is their own business. I don't profess to know what really definitely works and what really doesn't so I don't really want to interfere. Why can't parents just say they don't know rather than try and have one set answer for all parenting solutions? Like my lecturer, Dr Graham Barker, used to say, if you only have a hammer in your hand, everything will start to look like a nail. But if you have more tools in your hands, you can use the appropriate tools for each problem. Knowledge equate to tools.
3 comments:
It's not like I have never smacked Ky... i had on previous occassions when I thought, "this behaviour has got to change!!!". But it's usually me thinking it has to change because he's acting abnormally.
Like Ky used to bite me (and usually only me!)terribly till I bruised on the upper arm and nothing I did seemed to help. Then he just got over it one day and doesn't bite anymore without much credit to me.
So instead of thinking the child needs discipline, if we only think, "oh, he's developing normally", we'll relax a lot more and deal with the behaviour differently. Provided the behaviour is normal and reason of course.
I know, it sounds like an impossible task to discipline a child without the rod. I'm still experimenting myself so will share more in future in this area on how it's going!
I disagree discarding the rotan but using it only as the very last resort.
Right now my two kids are still too young for the cane but it will have a place in my household.
In the mean time, we are practicing Time-Outs with the older one.
Read it here
Jaywalk, I had a look at the time-out site and it's good. I like it. Thanks for that! It's similar to the naughty chair/corner concept but doesn't have the label "naughty". I think if you keep using time-out successfully, you might not need the rod as a last resort coz you would have changed your focus on parenting away from punishment/threat per se but on positive reinforcement.
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