Spare the rod

Spare the rod and spoil the child. Perhaps a view point out of favour today, but should it be?

Again the source is, I believe the bible. I have already made my view that the whole of the bible is not to be taken literally clear, and incidentally, I discovered recently that the Church of Scotland have shared my view since the 1600's. They say that the bible contains the word of God, not that the bible is the word of God.

Anyway returning to my point, spare the rod and spoil the child. Nowadays corporal punishment of children in the UK is outlawed. Even a parent spanking a child runs the risk of censure, and even arrest. Should that be the case? Is it wise?

I think the answer to both questions is NO.

Growing up I can only once recall being spanked by my father. I was very young, pre school certainly, and I was using the gas oven as a garage for my toy cars. As a parent I can only imagine my mothers anxiety. She spoke to me explaining that it was wrong, and dangerous. She ticked me off many times all to no avail. What should she do? Stop using the oven? Sh spoke to my father and when I defied him and continued to play in the oven he spanked me. He did not beat me, or use an implement, in fact I doubt he hit me more than once - I never did it again. Was I damaged by the event - of course not.

Nor was I damaged when strapped by my primary school teacher for talking when she told me to be quiet, nor on the occasions I was strapped for misbehaviour at secondary school. I never repeated an offence. The experience did not teach me that violence solved problems, nor did it cause me mental health issues in adulthood. It did teach me to respect the rules.

Today many children have comparatively minimal contact with parents who both work. Care, and thus discipline, is delegated to nursery or school teachers, neither of which are permitted to administer any real discipline. Often, I suggest, bad behaviour is rewarded. If, as a child, I had learned that misbehaving in class would lead to my being sent home, I suspect I would rarely have been at school!

Young children are allowed to get away with more by parents who only see them for a short time each day. Undisciplined young children become undisciplined teenagers.

I do not advocate a return to the birch, but youths passing through Glasgow's Barlinnie prison en route to young offenders institutions appear, at least on the surface, to see the experience as a feather in their war bonnet!

Spare the rod and spoil the child. Children need to be disciplined. They need defined boundaries and to know the consequences of crossing these. A pre school child does not have the intellectual maturity to be reasoned with. Offering a bribe for good behaviour generates the understanding that bad behaviour will be rewarded. Can anyone seriously argue that the loss, by the young, of respect for authority, and consequent delinquency, has not grown in direct proportion to the decline in discipline? I think not.

Of course no normal parent would want to smack their child, but that is part of a parents responsibility. I recall my wife, a school teacher in tears on the only occasion she ever administered the strap to a pupil. Parents, teachers or anyone in authority who relishes the administration of punishment are flawed, but those who do so with the child's best interest in mind should be applauded not punished.

Spare the road and spoil the child indeed. We need to return to a place where responsible adults and authorities are permitted to administer discipline to teach our children right from wrong. Modern liberal weakness and hand wringing is deeply damaging and should be stopped. Our children deserve our best, even if we do hate having to do it.

Thanks again for reading