Disciplinary fashions change, and not always for the better - especially not for boys.

Today, when my son is being a boy, I do not do as my father did - that is thought to be beyond the pale - instead I do this: "Just wait till your mother gets home." And when she gets home, then he gets it.

Not a whack on the bum, but a full-frontal verbal assault that looks to me - and, I fear, to him - like a form of mental cruelty that far exceeds the physical cruelty I once rather willingly endured.

I have noticed that girls tend to accept such verbal assaults as I did a whack on the bum; but I fear that for boys, things have become far worse.

A boy is not suited to enduring mental cruelty. He is not suited to anything much mental at all. He is a physical creature who can scrape all the skin off his knee and 10 seconds later be prepared to do it again. What he cannot do is shrug off the kind of viciously accurate character assessment Mum ladles out as "caring" and "non-coercive" discipline.

It is not just that he can't retaliate with the acid-tongue facility of a girl (though he can't - he tends to stand there speechless, sheer terror in his eyes); it is that he cannot think his way past the verbal thrusts.

They wound him, and leave him wounded.

The pain is not physical and transient, and not something that can be borne with dignified courage. It is psychological and permanent. He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Mum can see straight through him, and even if he cannot see what she does, he knows that what she sees must be there.

Ergo, he is not just a "bad boy", he is some kind of monster whose insides are twisted, vile and deformed.

cont...

I have tried to explain this to my wife but, as to be expected, I am always out-argued. I am accused of physical sadism and of a perverse delight in hitting, but really all I am is a big boy.

I cannot produce, deliver or deal with the verbal facility of women on the warpath. I feel assaulted, crushed, twisted, vile and deformed. I wish someone would punch me instead, so that I might bear up, get over things, and go on having fun.

Author unknown.

From my digital scrap book of blog posts that ring true for me. This one very close to home.

Usual Suspect.

What an awful and heartbreaking situation you stumbled across.

While it's incredibly sad, and I hope the bloke managed to get help, the story you tell has nothing to do with punishment styles. It is about abuse.

Parents are not presented with just two options: either a smack, or such violent verbal abuse that their child comes to feel like a "kind of monster whose insides are twisted, vile and deformed". Disallowing one does not permit the other. Good parents discuss and agree on a consistent parenting style. They do not bully each other, or their children.

What you have described is domestic violence. The distinction is important.

VANILLA.. glad you actually tweaked to what I was on about before going down that 'smacking' road too far...

Robert.. please re-read the gist of my posts. It has very LITTLE to do with smacking..in fact I'm not 'on' about that at all.

There was a newspaper article some time back in which it was claimed (not sure how accurate) that pre-school teachers/helpers were not allowed to say 'NO' to children. The idea being that they would develop low self esteem if you did..or..that it is the verbal equivalent of a 'smack' perhaps.. I don't recall.

What I'm digging at here, is the 'objective' of discipline rather than the method of applying it.
This is not a 'smacking vs talking' topic..

They may well be some of us who believe in a 'deterministic/behaviorist' model of humans. In which case the idea of inculcating the idea of 'moral wrong' into a childs mind would not be admissible. They would take the view "helfpul/beneficial/Non helpful non beneficial" in describing behavior.

I'm exploring the idea of the VALUE or reason, we attach to the word 'no' when dealing with children.

No..'its wrong'....
No.. he's bigger than you...
No..'it might endanger you (Johnny) under the present circumstances' (because just by Jimmy's hand is a baseball bat kind of thing)

Do we teach children 'absolute' right and wrong.. or.. 'situational ethics'

Now..Vanilla came up with a good trigger "do both" (say no, then explain then distract kind of thing)

Remember THREE yr olds for context here people.

Fair enough, but what do we 'explain'... (see above)

The Christian view is simple. 'Do for others as you would have them do for you'...but when they ask us 'why daddy'? we say "Because God has said so" (along with the practical reasons of self preservation etc)

Vanilla,

You're right, and I understand the distinction. I just thought I would throw verbal abuse into the mix, as it is never considered in the same breath as physical abuse.

'Disallowing one does not permit the other'.
I think it can be argued that parents who lose control of their children, who once might have used a smack for a 'quick reboot' of their child, have had this avenue taken away from them to some extent. It's not unreasonable to suggest that without this option, it is easy to imagine a parent losing control and letting a child have it verbally.

I do think looking back from my own experiences as a child (as I said it's very close to home, and I still remember the effect it had on me when first reading it), and observing the way little girls and boys react in conflict with parents, it's the little boys who suffer more from this new attitude to spanking.

Abuse, either verbal or physical is not necessary.

I am wondering if Boaz has had a 'road to Damascus' type transformation since the birth of his granddaughter, I hope so.

Vanilla,

this is not the first time Boaz has brought up the topic of discipline as a discussion topic. Perhaps the following link will help:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=50#750