A recent report from the World Health Organization states that 1.2 billion children are subjected to corporal punishment at home every year and this is not limited to a certain geographical region. It is a worldwide issue where children are victims of such harsh abuse disguised as discipline. Now imagine how much more children are subjected to this kind of physical punishment at schools and when they’re sent to live with a relative.
In Nigeria for example, a lot of us grew up with corporal punishment being the norm.
On a Monday morning, you’d find lots of children crying on their way to school and when you ask deeper questions, you realize that they were beaten by their parents or older siblings, probably for not eating their breakfast or refusing to do something that does not require such a level of physical punishment. On a Saturday, you could find a mother pursuing her child with a pestle simply because they were disobedient and if the child is unlucky, that pestle does land on them as a correctional tool.
Corporal punishment is harmful to kids and unlike what many people think, it rarely results in a positive change in their behavior. It’s also quite unfortunate that a lot of people do not see this as abuse. Rather, they hold the belief that it helps instill positive values in children. But that is never the case because values are better instilled through open communication, proper guidance, and modeling what you want the younger ones to imitate.
I can state it for free that most of my neighbors and family members who were constantly disciplined using shoes, brooms, mopping sticks, frying pans, and double canes did not turn out to be great adults. Instead, they became traumatized individuals who built resistance to pain and would use that as an excuse to still behave poorly if they wished to. I am a better individual today not because of the corporal punishment I received but through my attempt to imitate the obedience of my older ones, the good behaviors of my guardians, and learning the consequences of flouting rules.
There are exceptions that exist for very stubborn children and I believe it can be managed by minimal punishment that doesn’t involve physical harm but restriction of access to their privileges.
For example, children can be made to do the dishes and scrub the floor at home if they fight in school. Their access to video games can be revoked for verbally abusing their siblings, and they could be grounded to academic work for the entire week for disobeying their parents. And all of this should happen after they’ve been corrected through communication and counseled with the right examples.
When you decide to take the route of constantly serving them corporal punishment, especially because of your lack of patience and other insignificant things that can be resolved without any form of violence, you set their mental health up for ruin. You make them begin to harbor some form of hatred for you, which in turn stops them from expressing themselves fully when you're around. This also teaches them the wrong lesson that correction can only be achieved through physical abuse, and it doesn’t always train them to be obedient for the right reasons. Instead, it teaches them to always follow laid down rules without questions the ethics or knowing the reasons there needs to be a change in their behavior. Even worse, corporal punishment can escalate into worse situations that can put the child’s physical health at risk.
So refraining from corporal punishment and resorting to other effective correctional paths is the only way to safeguard kids while disciplining them. And with this approach, we can all raise better kids who will turn into obedient, respectful, and emotionally expressive adults who will have less trauma to heal from.
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