A Guest Post by Josh Brumfield
As a father of a 2 and half year old boy and a newborn baby girl, the recent posts on the disciplining of children caught my eye. Nathan attempted to show that spanking done “properly” need not be violent but can be a useful tool for disciplining young children. At least one person (Sofia Loves Wisdom) felt that adults only employ such methods of discipline against children because children are smaller and can’t defend themselves. They’d never attempt to discipline an adult child in the same manner. Sam was interested in emphasizing the need for caution in making certain kinds of claims and generalities.
However, I wonder if Sofia’s critiques might be able to transcend her personal experiences. Might there be some parenting transcendentals to guide us in this discussion? Certainly we could draw brackets around the obvious abusive situations, but it may be helpful to attempt an approach that recognizes the truth about children and the truth about discipline, admittedly in general and abstract terms, so that we can think about discipline, spanking, and violence within a proper (“Catholic”?) framework.
In my mind, the Church has “canonized” (at least) two approaches to the disciplining and education of children in the last two centuries. In canonizing St. John Bosco and approving his Salesian order, the Church has essentially put her stamp of approval on Don Bosco’s approach, which he called the Preventive System, which he distinguished from the repressive system of education which prevailed at the time (and probably still prevails). He summed up the basic attitude of Salesian educators toward children with the motto “reason, religion, and loving-kindness.” (Don Bosco primarily ministered to boys older than those focused on in the aforementioned posts, so I will not go into further detail on the Preventive System here).
A second “method” which the recent popes have commended is commonly known as the Montessori Method. Dr. Maria Montessori was a Catholic scientist who based her approach to education and discipline on the scientific observations of children and on her knowledge of St. Thomas. She and her work have been recognized, authorized, and/or commended by all the recent popes going back to Benedict XV.
[Note: “Church commendation” is not nearly as important as whether Don Bosco’s and Montessori’s claims about children are true. We’ll have to return to that later.]
Montessori also characterized the common methods of discipline and education as repressive and believed that children should never be treated with “violence.” Why?
In society at large society she saw the great external victories of men over nature in the industrial and technological revolutions, but she also observed a whole world of people who had been repressed from developing as they were created to do so. Of course as adherents to the doctrine of Original Sin we know that we are all broken, but she felt that many of us suffer from more or less subtle forms of various psychological illnesses because of the way in which we were disciplined and educated. Adults, generally well-intentioned, have repressed the natural impulses of children by demanding obedience to certain standards of “adult” society, but children aren’t adults. They function at very high human levels, but they function quite differently and are unable to exhibit consistent obedience until they reach the age of reason.
In observing children, Montessori identified a divinely instituted inner dynamism by which the child aims to develop her “personality”. The child possesses marvelous directives that come from within which urge her to work with great concentration and for long periods at certain types of tasks (which vary by age). Through these intense periods of working, the child, in a certain sense, directs her own formation and advances through her developmental stages, many of which are psychological or spiritual at root. Unfortunately, adults all too often are ignorant of what the child is trying to accomplish by repeatedly flipping the light switch (or something of the sort), of the importance such activities have for the development of the brain and the will, and of the damage done do the child when they impatiently reprimand the child for such innocent behavior. When this happens the child fails to develop “normally,” and learns to doubt her natural desires, her will, which traditionally speaking is one of the avenues through which God attempts to speak to us on a personal level. Thus, many of us grow up simply not knowing or trusting what we really like, what we really want to do with ourselves. We don’t believe that we can be happy with our work. Montessori and Montessori children know otherwise. Therefore, based on her scientific observations, Montessori insisted on respect for the child, whose freedom should be respected as much as an adult’s and whom she saw as a powerful being capable of bringing into existence a “normal” adult, if only the child is provided the right environment and the freedom to work as she wills in that environment.
According to her observations, children exhibit order and discipline on their own when are placed in environments which enable them to work with “reality” in their own way and at their own (often repetitive) pace. More importantly, they exhibit love and cooperation with other children rather than jealousy, competition, and tantrums.
Montessori describes a beneficial approach to a child in a state of chaos as follows:
Let us consider the three- or four-year-old child, as yet unaffected by the factors which will create in him internal discipline. [i.e. her “method”] …
(1) The voluntary movements are disordered. I do not mean the intention of the movements, but the movements themselves: fundamental co-ordination is lacking. …The small child who is clumsy in his movements will show many other obvious characteristics, such as disorderly actions, uncontrolled behaviour, screaming and contortions, but all these are of minor significance. An education which delicately co-ordinates the finer movements will by itself obliterate all the disorder of the voluntary movements. Rather than try to correct the thousand external manifestations of one deviation from the right path, it will be enough for the teacher to offer an interesting means of developing skill in the finer movements: placing a small light cube in the centre of a square, and so on.
Thus her approach relies on observation, that is humbling oneself and noticing what the child is doing or trying to do; showing the child how to do it, and allowing the child to perfect that skill on her own. When children are given an environment which enables them to interact with reality freely, they exhibit an intrinsic motivation to work on their development, including their discipline.
Children have, especially in the first years of life, an internal sensibility as to their spiritual needs, which repression and wrong education can cause to vanish, to be replaced by a kind of slavery of the external senses to every surrounding object. … It reveals itself in that delicate act of free choice, which a teacher untrained in observation would trample under foot before she had noticed it… The child who has fixed his attention on a chosen object, and is concentrating
his being upon the repetition of an exercise, is a saved soul, in the sense of spiritual health of which we are speaking. There is no need henceforth to occupy ourselves with him, otherwise than by preparing his environment so that it will supply his needs, and by removing obstacles which might obstruct for him the way of perfection. … The child who concentrates is happy within himself, unconscious of his neighbours and of his surroundings… When the concentration passes, he seems to become aware, as if for the first time, of the world which surrounds him, with unlimited scope for further discoveries; aware also of his companions in whom he shows a loving interest.
He awakens to a love of persons and of things – gentle and affectionate towards all, and ready to admire everything that is beautiful. The spiritual process is evident; he has to detach himself from his world in order to acquire the power of uniting himself to it.
Thus for Montessori the job of the teacher and parent is not to demand obedience by instilling fearful respect in any of a variety of ways but to allow the child the freedom interact with reality in a safe and appropriate environment . Any form of “violence” fails to respect the child’s freedom. The parent should allow the child maximum freedom within set limits, which are discerned by the parent with prudence, safety, and the child’s developmental needs in mind. Giving the child choices — this or that pair of pants, walk or in the stroller, etc.– can help her to form her will and to develop her unique personality. It will help her to grow up knowing who she is and what she wants, teaching her to trust her desires through which God can lead her to the vocation for which she was created and through which she will find joy and peace.
Of course, there will be the occasional (or in some cases quite frequent) tantrum or testing of the boundaries. In these situations the parent must remain emotionally uninvolved, attempting to understand the child’s frustration and to explain to her why she can’t do this or that. Any discipline that is necessary should be consequential, which means punishments should be something that follow naturally from the offense so that the child learns that her choices have consequences.
In short, a Montessori approach begins with a humble disposition of learning to understand the child’s developmental needs and her attempts to fulfill those needs. It demands respect for the child’s freedom to develop within set limits and respects the absorbent mind of the sensitive learning periods of the child by allowing the child to explore and work with her environment. Finally the Montessori approach does not allow for the repression of the child, via certain forms “violent (physically or verbally) discipline, or the manipulation of the child by showering excessing praise for mundane tasks. (Good job! You went down the slide.)
Montessori would say that spanking and other apparently effective forms of punishing or lesson-teaching, might change the child’s external behavior, but these approaches fail to help the child develop, to change the mind or form the will. She’d say they may obey, but they will likely not internalize the correct behavior for themselves.
I am not here generalizing my own experiences as a parent or a child. As a child I was spanked sparingly. As a parent I have not spanked and hope not to do so, but at present my home is far from a Montessori home; I am guilty of repressing my son without resorting to spanking. However, Montessori’s observations seem to accord with an authentic Catholic anthropology and reflect an integrally Catholic view of the world, which is more than can be said of Dewey or any number of other so-called education and/or discipline experts. I pray for the humility and grace to better observe my son’s actions and his needs and to aid his attempts at forming himself, while prudently, firmly, and lovingly redirecting him whenever he crosses the line.
Sam is right. Being a parent is risky and dangerous. I do not here wish to pass any form of objective judgment on any disciplinary action a parent might take in a given situation. I certainly claim no ability to judge concrete events by some generic code.
However, if Montessori is right about the development of children (and recent scientific studies of child brain development and child psychology have affirmed many of her observations), then we, as parents or teachers, may individually need to reassess our presumptions about our children and how we hope to aid their development into the disciples God intends them to become. I may need to learn to be more willing to observe my children humbly and not to impute rational disobedience or ill-intention to persons who do not yet have a fully-formed will or intellect and who often act out impulsively, simply forgetting “rules” which I think have been made quite clear. But, then again, how often do I, a “matured“ and “developed” adult, need reminders of God’s will and ultimately require recourse to reconciliation? As a parent, by the grace of God go I.
[Disclaimer: I am only recently becoming familiar with Montessori’s thought and am no expert on it in theory or practice, but I do feel her thought can make an important contribution to what has been discussed here recently. Hopefully a contributor or commenter here will be more well-informed and practiced than I.]
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