What was ok when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s is no longer accepted today. As a foster parent I was required to attend numerous trainings to both earn and renew my license. One of the greatest things that this experience gave me was a broader perspective on discipline. In truth, punishing and discipline couldn’t be more separate things.
The word discipline is from the Latin root, disciplina, meaning instruction and knowledge. As parent’s it is our responsibility to be teachers so that they become confident and capable adults. Punishment does not foster a child’s mental health, even when it creates short-term compliance.
Adults overstep their authority in all manner of physical punishments as well as psychological ones such as shame, guilt and disrespect. Can you imagine treating another adult in such a way? How would you react if you were treated in that way? Then how can it be justified with our most fragile and innocent?
Punishment is not appropriate for children. There are other ways for our children to learn, and it’s our responsibility to learn about them rather than relying on the method’s used by our parents. We may have “turned out fine”, but I believe that the much of the mess we see around us in this society is evidence that we could have turned out better.
Hi AnnBeth Patel, It was really great reading your post and I think it’s awesome that you are a foster parent. I didn’t know that foster parents had to take required training classes to get a license. I believe that’s actually a really good thing since not all parents know how to raise children the right and effective way.
ReplyDeleteI liked that you incorporated the idea that discipline is from the Latin root, I guess you learn something new every day. It is nice that you defined “disciplina” which help me understand what it means. I could not agree more that kids need instruction and knowledge. This will help them better understand and learn from their mistakes.
What really stood out to me was when you mentioned, if parents can imagine treating other adults the same way they discipline their children. I can only imagine what children are feeling when parents verbally and physically abuse them any other adult would feel attacked as a child probably does.
You wrote a great post and I look forward to reading more.
AnnaBeth Patel,
ReplyDeleteI love your point of view. I think that it is extremely interesting to hear about your education as a foster parent (that is a great thing you are doing by the way. I have so much respect for foster parents). I agree completely that punishing and discipline are different things.
Punishments, to me, are to make you feel bad for what you have done while discipline is about correcting wrong behavior. When you said that punishment is not appropriate for children, I agree because you would never “punish” another adult, why would you punish a child? I feel that punishment is meant for people who have done wrongs and need to be put in prison.
Overall, this is a great post. Good job!
AnnaBeth Patel,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I think it is incredibly awesome that you are a foster parent. I love that! And I couldn't agree more with your post. As a kid, my parents used discipline that made sense to the behavior. For instance, if I was rude to my mom, I would lose the privileged of going to a friends house because my mom said she couldn't trust me to be polite to my friends parents. The consequence lined up with the action. It allowed me to learn about my actions, and modify them. I am not a parent yet, but I think that its important to teach consequences to actions, but with respect.
-Blogging Molly.