Spare the rod, educate the child

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I refer to the article NZ passes disputed smacking bill on BBC News.

Summary

This article talks about the New Zealand parliament passing a controversial and highly debated bill disallowing parents to hit their children with too much force. In the application of this law, the police will be used as arbiters to decide if force used has breached the “allowed” amount. This law is a change from the past, where an ambiguous law allowing parents to use “reasonable force” to discipline their child.

Reflection

Spare the rod, spoil the child? Upon reading this article, I thought of the controversy surrounding corporal punishment in schools that exists right here in Singapore. While some teachers feel that corporal punishment is the best (or only) way to discipline children, more students, their egos having expanded since the previous century, are indignant that teachers should not be able to use brute force to punish them. And now, New Zealand even thinks that parents should not be able to use excessive force to discipline their OWN children.

Firstly, is brute force effective? I think not. When I was young, my father resorted to using a cane to punish my wrongdoings. While I cried my heart out after that, I do not feel that these acts of corporal punishment helped to shape my character in a moral way. Rather, it stirred up feelings of bitterness and resentment in me, and I am sure that corporal punishment would have the same effect in other children. At most, corporal punishment would terrify the child in question to not doing wrong things, but it most probably would not explicitly inform the child why he could not do something. Therefore, I feel that the ‘rod’ would not have any long-lasting effect on the morality of a child.

Next, should parents be allowed to discipline their children using force? Afterall, the parents were the ones who begot the children. However, I agree with the recently passed law. Children, even if still under the protection of their parents, should not have to suffer the emotional and physical torture inflicted by their parents. In fact, I feel that the fact that the parents are supposed to have a blood bond with their children makes it worse. The children, after having endured a beating from their parents, may feel that their parents, the people they trusted and loved so much, and become depressed and ruin their lives, as a result.

Alternatively, one must also consider the view of the parents. Having watched their precious children grow up with them, they must feel anguish when their children misbehave, or do inappropriate things. Indeed, some parents even see their children as a mirror for them to see themselves in, and thus may feel further sorrow at watching their children tread the proverbial criminal path of no return. In this case, they may lose all reason, and resort to disciplining their children physically. However, does it mean that their actions can be justified by their anguish or sorrow? They should also understand the feelings of their own children, who may have committed wrongdoing out of sheer innocence, or led astray by errant peers.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that while the feelings of the parents must be considered, they should maintain presence of mind while disciplining their children, and understand that their children are still immature. Also, the education system as a whole must stop using the corporal punishment, and instead groom the leaders of tomorrow via effective morality lessons incorporated into the syllabus.

(504 words)
give me a good grade pleeeease! 3:51 AM

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