A Heart Wrenching Tale

My heart broke when I read Adrian's blog today. I've been reading his blog for quite sometime and enjoy his scandalous (fictional) tales as well as those that chronicle his life; both as a husband and father.

There have been previous posts similar to the ones posted today and a few days before. But, the one I read today simply broke my heart. How could a kid be punished in such a manner for losing a textbook and an artblock? Kids being kids are often playful and losing some things here and there is the norm. Disciplining the child is vital to instill a sense of responsibility, but does this mean that the child ought to be hurled with derogatory words and slaps on the head and face? Tirades of abuse like, "Are you stupid? You're useless!" serve nothing but to demolish a child's confidence. And hitting a child on the head and face?

Can you imagine, being subjected to such insults at 8 years of age? When everything mum says is right. So when mum says you are stupid and useless (though she did that in a fit of anger), it is often interpreted by the child as "it really means that you ARE stupid and useless". How demoralising can it be to a young mind! Don't come crying when your child turns out to be a rebelious teenager in the near future!

Some say, spare the rod and spoil the child. I beg to differ. There are many different methods to bring up a child and whacking the child serves nothing but to inflict pain. Done too often, it will only cause rebellion. The child must be made aware of why a certain conduct should not be done and be taught to refrain from doing so because it is morally wrong, and not because it would result in being caned by the parents. It must be a conscious decision to refrain from doing something and not a situation where fear (of the cane) governs the child's conduct.

This is one reason why I disagree with the disciplinary methods commonly employed by Chinese-type schools. Tak buat homework, kena! Buat bising sedikit, kena! Lupa bawa buku, kena! Maths tak cukup 100%, kena! Horrible handwriting, kena! Whacking won't make the child get 100%, whacking won't make the child's handwriting better! Patience and good nurturing does!

Growing up, I was never subjected to the cane. Thank God! I wasn't the best-behaved of kids, but certainly not the worst either. Point is, I was brought up to understand why certain acts are wrong and should not be done instead of being whacked whenever I did something wrong. Reasoning and understanding is the key!

More importantly, kids are to be loved, and not to be whacked!

-LV-
PS: come whack me if you dare!