The Convention of the RIghts of the Child by UNESCO is an international treaty that recognizes the human rights of the children. (We had covered this aspect of human rights in our previous blog.) The essential aspect of this is that it focuses on the right way of bringing up the child.
The word discipline comes from the Latin word ‘Disciplina’ which means to teach or give instructions or learning. While the word ‘Discipulus’ means disciple or pupil.
Historically we have seen all kinds of discipline methods (including capital punishment in several cases). Parenting is not always a one type of response to the child’s behaviour. It manifests itself in various ways. Though education has made do without severely punishing children in school some parents even today have a different take on it. Due to their own upbringing, some parents still indulge in harsh punishment methods to discipline their child. Capital punishment like whipping, starvation, physical violence and emotional torture are used by such parents to get their own point across. They believe that this is for the betterment of the child.
It is here that the parents must remember that punishment is nothing but inflicting suffering to the child. The child comes to be fearful and never gets to learn the concepts of love, trust and goodness. Instead they believe that this is normal, hatred is an accepted part of growing up and trustworthiness is not possible in life.
Children grow up with skewed ideas of life and living and continue to have the same thoughts of bringing up their own children. Children who are inflicted with harsh and severe punishment methods for discipline turn out to be timid, fearful, vengeful, and broken.
What’s the way forward?
Gentle punishment is effective for disciplining kids. There are 4 points which can help you:
- Try to modify the child’s behavior by showing them the options and the consequences
- Develop their personalities or character in a way that they trust you and also have the courage to ask questions if they don’t understand
- Protect their mental health by explanation and discussions
- Develop a trusting relationship with your child so that the communication between both of you is open and transparent.
Spare the rod and you have a firm discussion instead and you won’t be spoiling the child!
