When I was little, my parents, especially my mom, prioritized the carrot-and-stick approach. Whenever I stray from her commandments I get punished for it. And, whenever I did her bidding, she rewarded me for it. Now, the level of punishment or reward depends hugely on the circumstance or situation. There was a time I argued with her and she lectured me on how to always listen before talking. There was another time that I argued, this time, in public. The repercussion was a swift slap right across my face. Also, the punishment continued immediately after we got home for daring to disrespect her in public.
Last week, a 17-year-old boy showed up to the teenager's class with marks on his face. When I queried him as to why he had blade marks on his face he told me it was his mom's doing. My first impression was that he got blade marks as punishment for stealing because that's the punishment down here for kids who are kleptomaniacs in nature. It's not as if cutting them stops them from stealing, anyway. However, it's more like a safe out for the anger and disappointment the parent is feeling towards the child.
Whatever this boy might have done does not warrant disfiguring his face. Out of curiosity, I met with his elder brother to know why the boy was marked, only to be told it was punishment for arguing with his mother. Like why would a parent mark his or her son's face just to punish him for arrogance? Isn't that too much? The funny thing is that punishment is a child's play compared to what some parents do to their kids. So, disciplining a child is relative; it depends on the parents' thought process and upbringing.
Due to the way I was brought up, I've also instinctively taken up the carrot-and-stick approach to disciplining my kids. The problem was that, at some point, I felt that I was doing too much and had to retrace my steps. I think one thing parents have to put at the back of their minds is that they are dealing with kids who have little understanding of their environment. Like, some parents punish their kids after judging them from the lens of a grown-up. For example, just last week, I could hear the wailing of a 6-year-old boy getting beat by his mom for bed-wetting.
Honestly, beating a kid for bed-wetting is just a typical case of a parent taking out his or her frustration on a poor child. Will that stop the child from peeing on the bed the next day? No, it won't. That beatdown only serves to quell the burning anger of the parent. It does not proffer a solution to the problem. That's not a corrective measure. The punishment follows because it is wrong to pee on the bed. However, for a 6-year-old who has yet to learn much about his body, other measures could've been employed to guide him.
One of the biggest mistakes parents can make is to hand out punitive measures to kids these days like the parents were bred. I mean, it's a different world we now live in. Back then, parents held absolute rights over their kids and could do whatever they wanted. These days, it's different. That is so because a lot of the disciplinary techniques our parents used on us are now considered child abuse. We are now in the era of emotional quotient and kids are not taking back seats in the emotional roundtable discussions; in fact, they are now taking the front row.
In conclusion, we are past the era of totality where parents do what they want and kids just suck it up. The best way to discipline a child involves what I call the action-consequence law. When kids go wrong if a punishment is to be served, make them understand they are getting punished for their action because of the possible consequence that comes with such action. You can't just discipline kids these days simply because you have the power to do so. Else, they grow emotionally detached.
