made his daughter stand by the road<\/a> holding a humiliating sign.\u00a0I have a serious problem with punishments designed to elicit terror or shame in children.<\/p>\nI am a parent myself. I try to parent using\u00a0natural consequences rather than more detached forms of punishment. If my children are fighting I may send them to their rooms to cool down, telling them that their row is disrupting the rest of the household and that they can come out when they\u2019re willing to work it out peacefully. Another parent might put them in a timeout for a specific amount of time, or have them write sentences, or even spank them. I want my children\u00a0to\u00a0understand how their actions impact others, though, and why<\/em>\u00a0we as a society sanction certain behaviors.<\/p>\nA\u00a0parent can be authoritarian without being intentionally or unpredictably unkind. My own parents were. Obedience had to be immediate, cheerful, and complete, always<\/em>, but punishments were never intentionally cruel or designed to create shame.<\/p>\nThe eighth amendment of our Constitution bans\u00a0\u201ccruel and unusual punishment.\u201d This only applies to the government, of course, but parents should take a moment to consider why<\/em> the government is forbidden from meting out\u00a0such punishments. If parents use a punishment designed to induce abject terror\u2014such as throwing wrapped boxes children think are presents in the fire\u2014something is seriously wrong.<\/p>\nLet me make a comparison.<\/p>\n
Earlier this\u00a0year I realized that my daughter, Sally, was putting off her elementary school homework to watch Youtube videos on her laptop. I cleared a space at the table for her school books, took her laptop and told her she could have it back when she finished her homework, and was on hand to help as needed. Sally was upset. It was her<\/em> laptop, after all, and I had taken it. But after taking some time to calm down,\u00a0she completed\u00a0her homework\u00a0and retrieved her laptop. Since then, she\u00a0has studiously\u00a0completed her homework before\u00a0turning\u00a0on her laptop.<\/p>\nA more authoritarian parent might have told their child they\u00a0had lost laptop access for a week, or a month, rather than just until her homework was finished. This would be more than was necessary, but it would not be intentionally cruel or specifically shame inducing. Taking that laptop and shooting a hole in it and posting a video of it to Youtube, though\u2014that<\/em>\u00a0is cruel and unusual. Parents can be strict without being cruel.<\/p>\nParents\u2019 role is to prepare children for adulthood. As such, they must teach their children skills, provide them with knowledge, and provide them with tools\u00a0them to navigate the adult world. In the adult world, children will still face consequences and, in some cases, punishment. If they refuse to do the work assigned to them, they will lose their job.\u00a0If they park in the wrong place, they will get a fine. If they take something that belongs to someone else, they may find themselves in court and facing a possible prison sentence (depending on the severity of the offense).<\/p>\n
But if the government is banned from meting out cruel and unusual punishment, it should be patently obvious that parents should not do so either.<\/p>\n
Parents need to understand how powerless children can feel. In many ways, children are at their parents\u2019 mercy. They only have the amount of control over their own lives that their parents are willing to give them. Our law bans abuse, but the threshold for what is considered abuse is generally quite high.<\/p>\n
Nine times out of ten I can resolve a parenting conflict simply by talking with my children. Why? Because they trust me. Because they know I listen to them. Because they know I deal fairly with them. Because they believe that what I say is true. Because they know I value them, and their needs. This is the stuff\u00a0parenting should be built of.<\/p>\n
I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The eighth amendment of our Constitution bans ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ This only applies to the government, of course, but parents should take a moment to consider why the government is forbidden from meting out such punishments. If parents use a punishment designed to induce abject terror—such as throwing wrapped boxes children think are presents in the fire—something is seriously wrong.<\/p>\n
Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":31369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[107,143],"class_list":["post-31327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","tag-holidays","tag-positive-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n