For years, many parents’ answer to children’s undesirable behaviour was a smack, strike or blow with an implement. That, so the former thinking went, would teach them to associate pain with bad behaviour and give rise to a Pavlovian response to the thought of doing something ‘naughty’. Thinking of doing something bad = involuntary thought/remembered sensation of physical anguish = avoidance.
I have major problems with using physical violence to solve any problem, let alone the ‘problem’ of how to guide a child away from ‘bad’ behaviour towards ‘good’ behaviour (quite aside from the entirely subjective and context-dependent question of what is necessarily good or bad - something that can change drastically from culture to culture and historical period to historical period. With perhaps the exception of doing the nasty with goats. That’s usually a taboo wherever you go. Oh, and siblings… well, let’s just leave it there)* - although there does seem to be a case for it in very specific situations, such as those argued for under the Doctrine of Double Effect. But as far as I can see, if using violence to discipline does achieve its aims - reducing undesirable behaviour - then its corollary is also to engender a culture of violence, and establish a clear hierarchy based on who has the greatest capacity to wield force and do damage. Think of old-style private boarding schools, military academies, prisons, and other heavily hierarchised confined systems where behaviour is strictly controlled.**
And there are so many other ways to achieve the same effect (which is really compliance from your kids, if you think about it)- usually all of which involve time, patience and effort, which is hard for a lot of people. The strategies would differ depending on the age of the child - distraction with something shiny doesn’t cut it with a five-year-old (well, unless it’s electronic, made by Apple and retails at over 200 bucks), but they almost all involve empathy, reciprocity and understanding. I find that if I really want Tiggy to pay attention to me, getting down to her level - where I can look her in the eye - and dropping my voice so that she has to strain to listen to me works a treat.
I am not perfect. Sometimes I am so frustrated that I want to lash out, but that’s more to do with me than Antigone. I never have, and I hope I never will.
* And I’m not insisting on a slippery antinomian moral relativism where ‘there is no good or evil’, just trying to keep the differences of other cultures in play as I submit to the values and strictures of my own society. In other words, a moral code that’s quite solid but blurs a bit at the edges. Tricky to do, that.
** And don’t try to sell me that ’smacking aint violence’ shtick. Coz I aint buyin’. Violence has a host of meanings, all of which have to do with force and a desired effect, from destruction and damage to coercion. Consider state-sanctioned force, always employed for a certain effect, from coercion and compliance to submission.
