In our early parentage a friend gifted us with some guidelines for child discipline*. We were struck with the wisdom in them and adopted the rules for our own children’s upbringing. Many years later we found that every one of our children love us and respect us despite the practice we had of faithful application of the rod when disciplining our children when they were young. Here are the highlights of how it worked.
First, immediate obedience was expected of our children; we did not tell them three times to do something. On the first command, if they did not obey, we used a rod to correct their behavior. As a result of this, several things happened.
- We never got angry because we applied the rod before our anger developed. The rod was a piece of yardstick about 18 inches long; enough to get some leverage but there was no way you could actually injure a child on their posterior.
- The children learned quickly that obedience was required and in its absence they must expect discipline
- We never threatened; we just acted when disobedience was manifested
- Tantrums were absolutely intolerable; the child learned that and they never tried again.
- Discipline was the concept, not punishment.
- We could hug and love the child after discipline because there was no anger involved.
- Use of the rod was much more effective than just the hand as it was felt by the child with much less effort on our part. Using the hand is too emotional; the rod is clinical.
- One swat was usually all that was necessary
- By early grade school, obedience was the rule of their behavior and the rod was no longer needed.
The children knew the bounds of behavior and lived by them.
Were the children moody, resentful or sullen as result of this approach? Absolutely not. Because discipline was not an emotional process but a merely a training approach.
It is a grave mistake to think that physical discipline is abusive or harmful to the child. Quite the opposite is true. Without discipline, a child is rudderless and doesn’t know what the bounds of behavior are. The child sees the parent’s anger and sudden impulsive behavior and doesn’t understand. Every incident is emotional and stressful. The child learns that he can get by in public because the parent will not apply any correction. Just a multitude of wrong.
Physical discipline applied unfailingly produced a moment of pain but no anger and no resentment as the kid knew he/she deserves it. No emotion, just discipline.
It worked.