The Better Ways to Punish
To deal with mischievous behaviour in a positive way, let punishment be balanced, appropriate and kind.

By Denise Lai, BA, BSocSc (Hons), MEd
This article was first published in Motherhood magazine in February 1994.

My best friend's mother strongly believes in using the cane. "You have to beat them and teach them or they will be brats by the time they are 10," she declared, in one of our Sunday conversations. Now, mind you, hers is not a case of the bark being worse than the bite. My friend recalls how she once caned him for touching (touching!) a box of mooncakes. Another time, she made him kneel in front of the ancestral altar for an hour. He cannot remember the naughty act for which that was punishment.

Looking at my friend now, it is difficult to see him as anything but normal, caring, responsible and stable. There is none of the pathological bitterness, anxiety, repression or maladjustment some assert will develop with "harsh" punishment. But what is harsh to one may not be so to another and as far as my friend is concerned, he is committed to taking care of his mother for the rest of her life.

Do not misunderstand, however. I am not promoting on the basis of this one example that caregivers continue with age-old practices because of the belief that "if it did no harm then, it will do no harm now". That would be, at best, a shortsighted view of what is really a complex issue at hand - discipline. But neither am I prepared to take the opposite extreme stand of saying "no caning!", "no physical punishment!" or "no punishment at all!" without first raising certain important points.

Bad Punishment

Firstly, bad punishment is not necessarily physical. I was told of an incident where a child was forced to cut up his favourite shirt as punishment for some wrongdoing. Another child with a clinical phobia was shown pictures of the highly feared object as a result of not following his teacher's instructions. Surely there are few of us who would not consider these treatments as severe, painful and destructive. The scars would probably not be skin-deep.

Similarly, parents sometimes subject their children to emotional hurt unconsciously with angry, careless words. How often have you heard (or used!) threats and comments such as "I do not love you any more", "Stupid girl! So useless one!" or "I do not want you. Let the policeman come and catch you!"? At those times when I witness such words or hear of aversive but non-physical methods of punishment, I wonder whether a few strokes of the cane is not better.

Now, let me elaborate. No one has the right to physically punish a child save for the child's parents. Ultimately, they have the final say in how they want their child raised. (I am not condoning child abusers.) But while I do not disbelieve in caning, I do hold that punishment must always be balanced, appropriate and kind.

These criteria rule out, therefore, instances of continuous uncontrolled caning, whipping, screaming and the like. They also disallow methods such as having the child carry a chair above his head for half an hour at a stretch. Conversely, they demand that we pay attention to factors such as the age and sex of the child, as well as the precise nature of the misdeed for which he is to be punished.

Unlike older children, preschoolers do not have the hindsight of experience with which to weigh their thoughts and actions. As such, they often require strict rules and firm handling, not wishy-washy warnings.

Boys, for instance, are generally rowdier and hardier than girls. So while a strong glare may suffice for a daughter, a son might need a more obvious tangible reaction from the parent, such as a whack on the bottom.

In the same vein, unlike older children, preschoolers do not have the hindsight of experience with which to weigh their thoughts and actions. As such, they often require strict rules and firm handling, not wishy-washy warnings. These children have difficulty appreciating what to them are vague, imaginary consequences, as in "Do not touch the iron. You might get burnt."

I remember how, as a five-year-old, I deliberately touched a hot iron to determine for myself what my mother meant by "hot". You can rest assured that the natural consequence of that act was punishment enough. Further punishment from my mother would have been salt to a raw wound. But to protect your young ones in similar situations, lay down the rules and carry through with threats, for example, "since you want to play with the iron, I will keep your toys".

Punishment That Works

Secondly, punishment works well when it bears some relevance to the wrongdoing. A child who has bullied a younger sibling can be "punished" by being made to do something nice for the sister in return. This can vary from a "sorry", handshake and kiss, to completing some of the offended sibling's chores (for example, tidying up the toys). The specific task to be performed should be appropriate to the situation and balanced with the severity of the misdeed (as in all forms of punishment).

But what I like about this principle is that it corrects a fault by teaching what is right and useful. In the above example, the child could learn some cleaning-up skill, useful for his whole life. So would the child who is made to wipe up by himself whatever he has spilled, or the child who is made to clean off the crayon marks he has made on the wall. In these cases whacks on the bottom and a torrent of frustrated words would not be better. They would leave behind little significance.

Finally, punishment as how we traditionally understand it is frequently not necessary in the vast majority of irritations children cause. Effective and wise methods of child management are. At times, it is the parent who must change a negative attitude or more clearly understand the child's motivations. To best illustrate what I mean by this, a number of scenarios follow. These scenarios are pictures of common real-life happenings but how well the recommendations apply to a specific case ultimately depends on the particular child, the parent, the time and the place.

Punishment works well when it bears some relevance to the wrongdoing. A child who has bullied a younger sibling can be "punished" by being made to do something nice for the sister in return.

The noise-maker

Your preschooler cannot keep still. He is constantly running about the house engaging in noisy wrestling. He screams and shouts at the top of his voice, climbs up and down the furniture and ignores all pleas to stop and keep quiet. In a four-room flat, the over-activity is heightened to an unbearable level. Instead of deploying the cane, first check to rule out a diagnosis of hyperactivity. Is he also impulsive and chaotic? If not, is it because he is bored? If so, try and provide thought-provoking toy materials.

Alternatively, you can schedule time in a nearby playground for him to run about all he wishes, or you can assign him a room in the house which is safe for him to play in, but far removed enough for you to get some peace of mind. A good technique is to make noisy play a reward for quiet work or rest. So, half an hour of quiet time for half an hour in the playroom. There can be a great deal of variation to this, depending on what is needed and available. And, of course, it is never too early for him to start self-monitoring - "Are there visitors?" or "Is mummy tired?"

 

The prankster

Your four-year-old is a mischievous prankster. Last night, he urinated in a flowerbed outside a Chinese restaurant. Today, he kept scooping out the guppies from the family aquarium to view their gasping gills. Tomorrow, he will draw in his sister's Chinese textbook and tear out pages from her beloved sticker album. You are at your wit's end. Smacks only seem to be water off a duck's back to your son. When he next misbehaves, you are highly inclined to make him kneel in a corner and pull his ears.

Such a child can be kept busy with a schedule of tasks to accomplish at given times. This can take the form of a token economy, that is, the child earns a token (for example, a star sticker) with every successful completion of a chore or assignment (for instance, helping mum put laundry in the washing machine).

At the end of the day, the tokens can be exchanged for a real reward (perhaps five tokens in exchange for 10 minutes of extra TV time). A generous parent might want to give a bonus reward at the end of every week (maybe 25 tokens for a meal of his choice). Tokens, however, are deducted with every incidence of bad behaviour (for example, three tokens deducted for messing up the living room) and no reward is given if tokens earned for the day or week are insufficient.

Parents must spell out beforehand the good behaviour that earns tokens and the misbehaviour that incurs penalties. The beauty of this system is that it elicits and maintains good behaviour while decreasing bad behaviour, as well as trains the child up in functional skills.

 

The dawdler

Your little girl is a dawdler. She holds up the entire family every morning. She refuses to get out of bed when it is time fusses when you try to dress her and spits out her breakfast when you prod her into hurrying up. Thus far, you have had to scold her and herd her into line by waving a cane. But it is tiring and you wonder whether you can put up with her "nonsense" for much longer.

And while certain misbehaviours may sometimes justify a strong manner of treatment, a less aversive method should always be tried first.

There may be a very good reason for the dawdling. Your daughter may just want to spend some extra time with you. Alternatively, she may dislike her kindergarten or caregiver. She may, for instance, have a very fierce teacher. Or there may be a bully in her class. You need to ascertain the child's motivations and deal with the problem accordingly.

But if no clear reason can be determined for the behavioural difficulties, a management technique might do the trick - set an alarm clock to ring at the time when the family has to leave the house in the morning. Tell your child that if she succeeds in beating the clock, she gets a reward. Naturally, the reward must be convincing and attractive. It may even be something like "extra time with mum in the evening at the playground".

The attitude that I hope has come across in these examples is that there are positive ways of dealing with negative problems. Traditional methods of punishment are not necessarily the best, the only or the most efficient with children. And while certain misbehaviours may sometimes justify a strong manner of treatment, a less aversive method should always be tried first.

But children will be children. There will sooner or later be that spilt drink, that careless word, that forgotten moment of glee. So let there always be wisdom and knowledge in the way we raise them. And let there always be love.

If you have found the information in this article useful, please pass it on to your friends.

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