Conventional wisdom

Children need to be disciplined. The punishment need not be harsh but a child learns to behave by consequences. Therefore it is the parent’s role to punish unwanted behavior until it disappears.

What if

What if punishment did not play a significant role in influencing a child’s behavior? What if, in some cases, punishment even reinforced the unwanted behavior?

Let us take a closer look. Psychologists tell us that all people act according to their self-image in everything we do. From trivial things to essential things that have tremendous impacts on our lives we simply follow our image. As you can imagine kids are no differen. They act according to their image which can be good or bad depending mainly on the parent’s opinion. But how does that impact our discussion?

Simply put, punishing your child, by itself, will do nothing to change his or her behavior in any permanent way. Only a change in the way the child perceives itself and its familial context can achieve that. As for the “permanent” concept do not forget that self-image is an ever fluctuating thing that can always go in any direction depending on circumstances.

But surely, you say, you are not one of those people who suggest that we should never ever punish kids under any circumstances? Well … yes and no. I am walking on a very thin ice here. Let me start by saying that I am not trying to discuss the moral right of parents to discipline their children. The issue is one of effectiveness on behavior modification. If you fail to understand that distinction, the whole point of this discussion is lost.

The essence of my argumentation lies in the following distinction: your children will not change a behavior that is tacitly accepted even though it is punished. For example, you punish your eight year-old son for having said something rude to his teacher. The punishment you handed, you think, fits the crime but in your mind (even if you are upset) you believe that “these things happen from time to time and that his teacher is somewhat responsible for it by not being authoritative enough”. What happens then? You son perceives that it is perfectly acceptable to blow up in class if you are willing to pay the price for it (accepting the punishment you just handed him). He will stay with the same image of himself which is the image of someone who allows himself to blow up in class.

What to do then? First ask yourself if your family values do not really allow you to have a son who blows up in class. This is a question that needs to be answered honestly because maybe you used to blow up in class or maybe you profess admiration for people “who show character” a bit too much. If all this social searching tells you that this type of behavior is unacceptable in your family you need to really show it by discussing it with the child making sure that the child realizes why it goes against family values. Once this is done, a meeting with the teacher might be set up to give the child a chance to do just that, that is explain why the outburst was unacceptable for him. For this meeting to be effective, the child must agree on its purpose. Forced apologies is a punishment and not a change of image. Should there be some kind or punishment given on top of it is irrelevant to our discussion.

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In ice hockey in the NHL, fights are punished with time spent in the penalty box. Fights are treated in a business like manner which in effect officialize and condone them. Punishing you child without clearly stating what is acceptable or not will not change behavior at best and, at worse, will reinforce bad behavior.

What to make of it

Our prison system punishes on one hand while it tells convicts that they are bad and that we expect them to behave badly if they do not have a gun to their head. Could it be that we reinforce the negative image that prisoners have of themselves? It is possible that there is no other way. I do not dispute that for the moment, I only want to point out that unless we come up with a way to impact how the inmates see themselves we will keep enjoying the same success we are experiencing now.

Remember your effectiveness as a parent lies in your ability to clearly indicate to your child what is acceptable whether it be in a verbal or non-verbal mode.