"It will only get into his brain after I hit him hard."
"It's for her good, if not she don't understand."
"He made me so angry, I had to whack him!"
Physical punishment may be familiar to many of us in Singapore due to its common use amongst parents who were of the Baby Boomers (born 1946 - 1964) or Gen-X (born 1965 - 1980)'s generations as a parenting method. It was a method mostly observed in parents who were less educated and thought that they do not know how to teach their children. In addition, it seemed to be a rather effective method as children would behave accordingly after being punished.
However, as we become more educated (wanting to use rationalising to teach), and for those who went through childhood punishments, the questionability of the effects of physical punishments arises. Firstly, we may have concerns on children's development (especially psychologically) when we administer physical punishments, such as their self-esteem. Secondly, we ask ourselves, is physical punishment truly effective to teach our children well?
To tackle these questions, we came across a parenting study published in 2022 conducted by Singapore Children’s Society and Yale-NUS College on 747 parents and 667 young adults in Singapore. Its findings are discussed in the Expert Says section below.
Tips To Consider
In our current society, spanking is a last (or never) resort to most parents. The guilt and pain that we have after physically punishing them is heavy on us. Thus, before spanking becomes your choice of punishment, we have prepared some actions that you can take on and forget it as an option:
Time-out: This can be one of the most useful methods as it gives you and your child some allowance to "calm down" and rethink about your thoughts as well as feelings. Often the 2 to 5 minutes break from the intense moments can help to "salvage" the situation. The words that you use will be less "hurtful" as compared to the immediate lashing.
Get another party involved: Although some parents might feel that others shouldn't intervene when one is disciplining his/her child, when the situation gets too heaty, we know another person's help is good to "neutralise" the situation. As adults, we can let the other adults know too - how they can help to talk things through when such situations occur, and not to put both the adult or child's words down.
Pause & breathe deeply: If you think time-out is not possible, at least some pauses and deep breaths can help in such situations. More deep breaths will help to circulate more air to flow into your body and that can help you calm nerves and reduce stress.
Remember, we want to discipline, instil right teaching to the children, but not to vent our anger. We must constantly think what is the best way that our children, your own child, can truly understand your intention. There's a saying: Punishment teaches kids to listen and follow out of fear. That's even more so when the punishment gets harsh, or gets physical. However, when children outgrow this fear and realise they will be fine, they will no longer listen to you, the person who gave the punishment. Often, the lack of respect follows on. While we recognise that punishment "reminds / emphasizes" on what children should not do, perhaps we can spend more time to introduce ways for them to remember what they should do. And we shall bear in mind, we always need reminders and encouragements to be a better person. Same for children!