Around the 1970/80's people began to get psychological about parenting and bringing to light how hitting and berating your children was emotionally and mentally damaging. Still it took a while to catch on because those old parenting ways of hitting instead of talking were ingrained in our society. Even now we have the great smacking debate with parents and experts still unable to agree on whether we should be allowed to smack our children or not? You still get parents saying, "I was smacked and I turned out ok."
Firstly smacking is different to child abuse (in which children often come out damaged). We need to get straight about that! One small whack, tap or light hit on a bottom (which is what a smack is) is not abuse. It's not necessarily necessary and there are other ways to get a child to behave... still it doesn't equate as abuse. How the smack occurs determines whether it is abuse or not, it's not primarily abuse simply because it occurred.
I once witnessed a mother hit her small daughter on the bum repeatedly, over and over again, because her daughter had touched and broken a glass bottle in a supermarket. To the staff and supermarket managers one broken bottle by a little girl was nothing. To the mother, who seemed to take it badly, it seemed to hurt her ego as a parent: as though she'd failed somehow because her daughter broke someone else's property. Firstly it was an accident. Secondly she was very young little girl, 2 or 3. Thirdly the reaction by the mother was far too excessive and I called her up on it, whereby she looked at me embarrassed and quickly walked off dragging her daughter behind her. That was abuse and I doubt very highly, if that was a regular occurrence in that little girls' world that she turned out ok. She didn't look ok at the time, she looked terrified and unable to escape her mother's clutches and repeated whacks. She cried and flinched and did not seem to understand what was happening to her or why. Heartbreaking.
Getting back to the point of this post, however, it seems that since we've taken the option of smacking away many parents are lost as to how to discipline their children. For years we'd watched our parents and grandparents raise children with physical force, raise children in fear - make them too afraid to step out of line for fear of harsh punishment. Take that away mid generation by telling parents they can no longer lay a hand on their children and the system collapsed. Suddenly parents didn't know HOW to discipline their children. They had no teacher, no experience doing it any other way. Those who tried to discipline using words failed to see the same results and the other half stuck to hitting because it was what they knew.
Out come the parenting books on new and improved ways of discipline, yet a generation later... we're hitting crisis point with children now ruling the roost, parents unable to control their children and teens and children lacking manners or respect. We have children screaming at parents about "I want a new iPad and I want the latest version" while parents are being held hostage to their child's every whim. I know of parents who have read all the latest books and are still really, really crap at getting their children to behave and be respectful.
That's why I started this blog Disciplining Kids 101 because I wanted to offer real advice, for FREE, to parents who are struggling with getting their children to do as they're told, struggling within their lives because their children are so unruly they're stressed and depressed and don't know what to do.
There are a few keys rules to being a good parent (without resorting to abuse):
1) Consistency is key
2) Follow through
3) Learn the techniques and implement them well
4) Ask other parents who you know have well behaved children how they do it and be prepared to follow their advice. Don't blow their advice off just because you think it's too hard. Trust me when I tell you, an unruly child is more hard work than having to get off your backside and do the hard yakka!
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