Because the values, beliefs, education, customs and cultures of people vary so widely, along with the age and temperament of the child, methods of child discipline vary widely.
What some call discipline others call it punishment.
What are those two words really mean ?
What are the effects of them on children , parentst ,and sociaty in general?
The word discipline is defined as imparting knowledge and skill, in other words to teach. Discipline is used by parents to teach their children about expectations, guidelines and principles. Children need to be given regular discipline to be taught right from wrong and to be maintained safe. Child discipline can involve rewards and punishments to teach self-control, increase desirable behaviors and decrease undesirable behaviors in children
In its most general sense, discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. To discipline thus means to instruct a person to follow a particular code of conduct. While the purpose of child discipline is to develop and entrench desirable social habits in children, the ultimate goal is to foster sound judgement and morals so the child develops and maintains self-discipline throughout the rest of his/her life.
But at the same time
Many parents today feel obliged to control their children’s behavior through punishment. Some even express worry that if their children do not fear them, the youngsters may not grow up to become law-abiding citizens. Discipline, in their minds, implies instilling fear. It often refers to punitive practices such as taking away possessions or privileges, time-outs, and spanking, not to mention yelling and threatening — in fact, “losing it” to make a point and to maintain control.
The Essay on The Advantages of Fewer Children per Teacher
As world populations continue to grow exponentially, teachers are facing a new problem in classrooms- the large number of children. With more children, it is more difficult to teach new subjects in a short amount of time. Teachers have little time to help individual students struggling because the rest of the class is already excelling on the subject and wants to learn something new. Not only do ...
In most cases they come to use corporal punishment .A
“Corporal punishment is the use of physical force causing pain, but not wounds, as a means of discipline.” Definition of Corporal Punishment by Unicef- Educate! Don’t Punish! Awareness Campaign physical punishment was very common. In the past corporal punishment was by not only applied to children. It was used on adults as well. In England from the Middle Ages whipping was a common punishment for minor crimes. In the 18th century whipping or flogging was a common punishment in the British army and navy. This type of punishment was abolished in England in 1881. (Lambert P.2) From the Middle Ages to the late 20th century children were disciplined with rods or rulers in schools, work and at home. (Lambert P.2 ) After the Bible a lot of our modern philosophy on child rearing can be traced back to the writings of John Locke who wrote the treatise Some Thoughts Concerning Education which was published in 1693. Locke started writing his thoughts about childrearing at the request of his cousin who was asking for advice about the upbringing of her son. (Cleverly et al P.15) As John Cleverly and D.C. Phillips point out in Visions of Childhood: Influential Models From Locke to Spock, Locke began by discounting the notion that any “innate principles” arrived inborn with the infant. Instead, he proposed that a child entered the world as a tabula rasa or blank tablet upon which would be written the contents of the mind. Locke wrote “…’tis fit we now come to consider the parts of the discipline to be us’d…… I have spoken so much of carrying a strict hand over children, that perhaps I shall be suspected of not considering enough, what is due to their tender age and constitutions….. that great severity of punishment does but very little good, nay, great harm in education; and I believe it will be found that, …. those children who have been most chastis’d, seldom make the best men.
The Term Paper on Corporal Punishment Children Parents Canada
Corporal Punishment of Children: When Family Issue Become Public Concerns Corporal punishment is a rising concern in Canada. On top of that Canada is getting scrutinize from the rest of the world for allowing parents to use reasonable force to punish children. Earlscourt Child and Family Center in metro Toronto deals with family and abuse. Parent s educators help parents deal with other techniques ...
For a full understanding of the attitudes towards corporal punishment, like any other aspect of our society, we must go back to the earliest records. Fear of the rod was the educational legacy handed down from the earliest societies to modern Europe. Social and religious attitudes supported it, with only a handful of men speaking against it on the grounds of its debasing effects, or lack of success.
Primitive Tribal Societies
Probably the only generalization that can be made about the use of physical punishment among primitive tribes is that there was no common procedure. Among some tribes of Australian aborigines, for instance, physical pain was deliberately inflicted on the boy as a training for, and test of manhood (Elkin, 1964, chap. VII).
Among certain tribes of North American Indians, however, the concept of deliberately inflicting pain on children was absent, but among others, beating was a common punishment. Pettit concludes that among primitive societies corporal punishment is rare, not because of the innate kindliness of these people but because it is contrary to developing the type of individual personality they set up as their ideal. He finds ridicule, praise, and reward more common (Pettit, 1946, 161).
Flagellating is common among primitives as a cure for disease and as a sexual stimulant; frequently these latter are masked by religious ritual.
The degree to which religion, sex, the inculcation of obedience and the training for adulthood are sometimes mixed in the culture of primitive tribes is illustrated by the following description of a Hopi Indian puberty rite.
The whipping rite symbolizes the Hopi child training pattern. In it the mother of the Kachinas, represented by a masked female figure, holds a large supply of yucca switches while the Whipper Kachinas, represented by masked male figures, apply them to the nude boy supported and shielded by his godfather and his godfather’s sister. Both the boy and his godfather stand on a large sand painting which represents the Kachina Mother and the Whipper Kachinas, while a segmented line drawn from the Kiva si’papu southeast shows the road of life with its four phases. Afterwards the Mother Kachina steps on to the sand painting and is whipped by the Whippers and then the Whippers whip each other. (Thompson & Joseph, 1944, 56)
The Essay on Capital Punishment 22 Society Happiness Life
What would the world be like if the guilty was punished Great; if in that world we could punish only the guilty and not the innocent. Thousands of innocent people have found their demise through our justice system. For this reason, and this reason alone, we should not allow capital punishment to implement itself on society. For if we do, we are making a grave mistake. Humans alone don t hold the ...
An important point to be made here is that we cannot state that physical punishment as a motivational or corrective device is “innate” to man. Nor is it possible to have as a theme for this work the evolution of man as a pain-inflicter to a non-inflicter, however, likely that appears when we look at later developments.
Another point worth noting for later reference is that Rousseau’s contention of the primitive man being punished only by the consequences of his own actions has not been sustained by any source.
Early Civilized Societies
In the texts that touch on the subject, physical punishment is mentioned as part of the methods used in all the ancient civilizations. Of the schools of Sumeria, for instance, Kramer says “most learning was accomplished either by rote or by copying; in the matter of discipline, there was no sparing the rod” (Kramer, 1958, 40).
In ancient India, it was provided by the The Laws of Manu (formulated about 200 A.D., but based on earlier works) that “a wife, a son, a slave, a pupil, … who have committed faults, may be beaten with ropes or split bamboo, but on the back part of the body only, never on a noble parts” (quoted by Woody, 1949, 163).
In China bad scholars were “not infrequently punished every day” (Smith, 1899, 79).
While there is much evidence for its use, there does not seem to be any records of the theoretical justification for the use of punishment in education by the people of these times; it appears to have been accepted without question.