Spare the Rod

I had an interesting conversation yesterday that brought up some very interesting thoughts and concepts. There was (still is?) a controversy surrounding “Spare the rod, spoil the child”. Is physically disciplining your child okay?

I say no. Or at least not regularly or even semi-frequently. Really I don’t like the idea at all. Here’s why.

You are teaching the child that the punishment for doing something wrong is physical harm.

You are teaching the child that conflicts are resolved once someone is “taught a lesson” by getting hit.

You are starting a cycle where that child grows up thinking he needs to “teach a lesson” to people who displease him. It’s building up physical aggression. They will think using physical force is okay. That’s not okay. It may be extremely effective in getting the behavior you want in the child at the time, but at what cost? You are prepping the kid to harm others in the future. You are teaching him or her the wrong way to resolve conflicts – that will actually cause more problems.

Not only can they use it on others, but I feel like that will be how they understand their own mistakes, as well. Maybe they won’t feel like mistakes they make are a big deal until someone has used physical force. They could have this mindset of “Hey, I haven’t gotten whipped, so I must not have messed up that bad”.

Really this goes with anything. Anything involving kids. I’m obviously not a psychologist or anything, or even remotely experienced with kids, but this is all just common sense. Don’t you think? Kids learn first and foremost through imitation. And those concepts get deeply engrained into them. Their parents’ views about money, politics, religion, social equality, love… it all affects them. First by imitation, and then you have to hope they are smart enough to figure out their own way quickly after childhood. Parents are supposed to be the role model. Your kids are supposed to want to be like you and look up to you. Don’t teach them to use violence when they feel they’ve been wronged… Or that it has to come to that before they will fix their behavior…

There are better ways…

Take me, for example. I learned that you need to be punished and denied privileges if you don’t behave correctly. In fact, you don’t get privileges until you earn them. You have to be 100% picture perfect in order to earn the things that you want in life, like love, friends, things, success, etc. And now that’s how I view people. That’s how I judge people. They didn’t work hard enough. They didn’t learn all their lessons. They don’t deserve me. They have to be punished by being denied my love and my friendship. Or anyone’s.

I’ve come a long way, but I can still feel it deep down. That judgment. That irky feeling within me. The “inner brat” that is so ticked off because I worked SO hard to be SO good, and it just isn’t FAIR if people who acted like crap get rewarded, or don’t “learn their lesson”. Luckily that doesn’t mean violence to me, it just means NOT getting what you want and emotionally suffering for it. I had to do it, and so should everyone else. That’s the correct order of things. I’ve always felt like I never made the cut, so I should be the bottom bar as far as standards on being a good, moral, well behaved person, so if anyone is worse than me… well geez, they really are not trying – they are trying to be bad! It was just so weird growing up feeling like I wasn’t good enough, as in well-behaved enough, and then I meet other people and they act so horrible and wild, and it just doesn’t make sense. I was supposed to be the failure, and yet I’m not – yet I’m the best. I succeeded wayyyy beyond all these other people. Hence my massive confidence on that front now – dare I call it cockiness (yes, that is a better description). And yeah, when people act stupid, it generally blows up in their faces, and they do pay the consequences. But sometimes it doesn’t exactly work out that way, and those times drive me even more nuts. I mean, I know it’ll come back to bite them, it’s just annoying when people brag about bad things they did. And that’s exactly what needs to change in me. Once I can truly accept people, I will just feel empathy and understand that they were or are struggling, and I won’t judge them for it. But I’m not there yet.

I wanted to try to see if I could explain my changes and growth as far as all this. I’m not sure I can. It’s really more like those thoughts aren’t as loud now. They are still there, and deep down I still believe them, but I’m not shouting them in my mind all the time. I’m not getting dizzy with rage and elevating my blood pressure and having my body freak out with health issues as much. Those voices have calmed down and I have other ways of understanding things now – at least logically. I really cling to the idea that people want to love and be loved and they just fill that void with whatever they can grab onto, and they are just too dumb to realize it isn’t working. It takes time for people to wise up and figure themselves out. As an ex told me, not everyone has things all figured out like I do. And yeah, I understand that I judge people how I judge myself and how I’ve felt I’ve been judged. These things are just not something you can change overnight. Just like for them. I can’t change my judgment and resentment overnight any more than others can change their ways and beliefs overnight. It just all seems so obvious to me… it just feels like common sense… But yeah, so I’m not there yet, but I at least logically get it. I just don’t have 100% faith in it yet.