I was in my psychology of women class about a week and a half ago, and we were on the topic of abuse. It's a very sensitive topic that most people in the class can somehow relate to. At some point, this girl raised her hand and said that she was watching Dr. Phil the other day and there was this woman on the show who had apparently punished her son by making him take cold showers and forcing hot sauce down his throat. She said there were tons of mothers in the audience who were shouting out saying how terrible that is and that she's abusing her child. But then this girl went on to say how she disagreed with the mothers in the audience, that she didn't think it was abuse at all and that the punishment "wasn't so bad."
Um, excuse me?? Please do not talk to me about child abuse and say that forcing your child to eat plain hot sauce does not constitute as that. I'm an early childhood education major and I adore small children to no end. How does someone possibly see that as okay??!
What really got me though, was a few minutes later when a guy in the class basically seconded what the girl said. He said you can't always assume that the child doesn't know any better and that it's not their fault for whatever they did, and thus a punishment is needed to justify their inappropriate behavior. He said if a child is repeating an inappropriate behavior over and over again, s/he should know better and it's her/his fault for getting punished. At this point I was getting so much tension built up inside me and I felt like I could have exploded at him, when my teacher diverted the discussion and continued on.
But I just wanted to shout out, ARE YOU CRAZY?! Children's inappropriate behavior is never their fault; they are just exploring the world and trying to see what they can and cannot get away with. It's how the adults handle the children's behaviors and situations that will determine if they learn that the behavior is appropriate or not. If a child repeatedly acts out or behaves inappropriately, then the adults need to re-look at how they are handling the child's behavior. Chances are, the child is getting some kind of message that says "this behavior is okay," or "I can get away with this."
What I would like to know is, what is this mother teaching her child when she forces him to eat hot sauce? Because I don't care what this child did, that is not going to teach him that his behavior was inappropriate. He is not going to correlate his behavior with being forced to eat hot sauce, because that has nothing to do with his behavior. And trying to change his inappropriate behavior by doing something inappropriate herself is definitely not going to teach her son anything except a bunch of mixed messages. Think about how this boy is going to grow up and view the world. It's not going to be a very loving and caring world for him, because it looks as though he is not getting much of that right now.
This is why adults should never punish children. Instead, children should be disciplined, and yes, there is a difference. To discipline children means to teach them, while punishing children means they are harshly penalized. Adults want to teach children how to interact in this world, and unfortunately sometimes they think that inflicting pain on them will help them discover the "right way." This is very untrue, because in this way, adults are not modeling the correct behavior or handling the children's behavior with appropriate behavior themselves. It's like if you want to teach a child not to bite, you shouldn't bite that child back so s/he "knows what it's like." Instead, you show the child how it hurts when s/he bites someone and explain that it's important to be gentle. Kids surprisingly understand a lot and they know what it means to be gentle. In the case with the mother forcing her son to eat hot sauce, I'm not sure what the child did to make the mother do that, but I can reassure there is always a better way to handle whatever the situation was than how she did. I just wish people would open their eyes and see that children are just very misunderstood and they deserve to be treated with respect, just like any adult would want.
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