Training vs. punishment
One message I got from To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl, and probably one of the main messages I was supposed to get, was that there is a difference between training and punishment.
I confess I don’t really resonate with the idea of punishment. I don’t want to say to anybody, “I don’t care if this helps you, but you deserve to suffer.” But the Pearls deal with this issue too, in a very interesting manner, by arguing that punishment takes away guilt, that children actually feel better knowing that justice is done. I know that young children - probably most of us adults too, aren’t very good at repenting and receiving forgiveness. So punishment deals with guilt feelings when there is no other way of dealing with them.
But tiny children don’t need to be punished. They don’t know what they are doing. They aren’t disobeying you; they aren’t even listening to you. The Pearls explain how to train a child to listen, to understand what the word “No” means, to learn to stop what they’re doing when they hear that word. That’s training. The Pearls are controversial for suggesting that a small switch can be used to assist in that training.
But what is more merciful: to teach a child to avoid trouble and danger by applying mild physical pain, or not to teach them at all? Childish disobedience is cute until it leads them into a busy street. Which consequence for disobedience do you want your child to face : a small switch or a large truck?
September 26th, 2007 at 6:27 am
[...] for now, when they are not yet as smart as us, we need to protect them from themselves. We need to prepare them for a world where a tantrum has very little power. We need to prepare them [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
[...] ourselves, and that includes our threats and actions with our kids. For more on disciplining, read Training Vs. Punishment, by Michael Davidsen. Did You Enjoy this Post? Subscribe to Parenting and Religion. It’s Free! « Back Home [...]