A good smack keeps a child in order - or does it? (How to Discipline Children)

Member Name: Dangermousegirl

Product:	How to Discipline Children
Date:	08/09/00 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The child gets a strong value of what's right and wrong

Disadvantages: It may lead to nervousness and the child being afraid to try new things

In a new century of rights for all people, many parents still smack their children as they feel that this is the only way that they will learn properly when something is wrong. But in the age when people can have their pets taken away from them because they smack them when they do something naughty, is this action really right?
When it is first born, a baby has no understanding of rules and what is acceptable behaviour. Without its parents to teach it what is right and what is wrong the concept of murder and the word "illegal" would not mean anything to it. The only means that a young person has of learning is by watching how its parents act and how they react when it does wrong things. This was shown a while ago when a small child of 3 or 4 years old had been taught by its mother to take items off the shelves as it went along in shops and put them under the pushchair so that they could be stolen. The boy had no guilt about this as he had never been shown that it was not the correct behaviour - in fact he had been encouraged to do it.
It is obvious that children must be disciplined in some way, but by hitting it is a parent simply teaching it to hit out itself when it doesn't like something that someone else is doing around it? It must be emotionally damaging to the child when the person that it loves suddenly turns around and strikes it - it could take some of the stability of a loving home out of its life if it thinks that it may be hit any moment for something that it doesn't know is wrong. It may grow up and abuse its own children or turn to drugs and alcohol as it feels insecure. On the other hand, a child who has been smacked only occasionnally when it has done something very bad will probably grow up with a strong sense of clarity on different issues.
I think that it is very important that smacking should only be used as a last resort on children, and a child with a low confidence level should never be s
macked as you need quite a strong personality to be able to cope with the shock of the people who are closest to you hurting you in such a way. A strict NO is always better than a smack and children usually find it more upsetting to see their parents upset by what they've done than being hurt physically. It is sometimes as effective to keep children indoors and not let them out with their friends as this embarrasses them, but disciplining children depends on the individual personas no one is exactly alike.

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