After reading and slightly editing my earlier post on the physical discipline of children, I feel the need to include further information.
The NZ tabloids spoke of the laws that outlawed child smacking as causing a breed of children who didn’t fit socially into society very well, children who were often self centred and disobedient.
When I found the book by AH Chapman, I reread part of it, and in there he mentions that children who don’t have appropriate physical discipline can turn out to be self centred and unable to fit into society in socially acceptable ways.
So by removing the rights of spanking from a parent, we are deliberately breeding children who may not be going to be able to function properly in society as they grow older.
Another form of child discipline that was endorsed by this well respected psychiatrist: Scolding “…strong disapproval of the child’s action, often expressed in an angry tone…[sometimes with threats of stronger physical discipline and lasts around]…2 or 3 minutes…”
A parent who scolds their child in Australia is also at risk of being arrested.
On another note, we hear of the child care worker who said that with discipline now so slack in the homes, having children in childcare is placing undue stress on child care workers, as some children are pretty well uncontrollable under existing guidelines
I listened to a psychologist who said one should not yell at children, because it is bad for them, and he then proceeded to list several time consuming techniques that a parent could use instead of scolding.
The first thought that came to my mind, was what parent can spend that much time using those techniques. He even suggests that if the techniques don’t work, for the parent to do some time out of their own - not the child, but the parent.
Discipline was always suppose to be short and sweet, now it’s anything but that, and what one has to consider, is that telling parents to do long winded type things to control behavior may not be int he best interests of the child.
And that is the point I want to make here - we are selling our children out for political correctness, and we may be turning them into societal misfits, who will never respect other people nor the greater society.
Our laws are therefore potentially an act of child abuse, that afflicts many children, but because they are the lawmakers, they get to decide whats right and wrong, irrespective of the wisdom of the parents.
I don’t endorse 10 hard smacks, I don’t endorse child abuse, but parents are best at raising children, and the government needs to stop focusing on all parents and start focusing on the ones that are genuine abusers.
Lets face it, the vast majority of us were smacked or belted as children, and we turned out just fine. A belting or a smack, or even ten hard smacks was not abuse, the abuse is denying the parents the right to raise healthy children - children are not adults, and should not have the rights, nor the responsibilities of being adults.
Why do I mention responsibilities of being an adult? Well, if children have the same rights as adults, then they also have the same responsibility not to misbehave nor to act inappropriately.
But children are just that, children.
And I’ll end it here with these words again:
Love, Limitations, and Let them Grow Up.