Every time there is any news in the press about hitting children to educate them or whenever it is remembered that it is forbidden to do so hundreds of paternal and maternal voices are heard to defend the cheek in time as an educational method.
Hitting children is a practice deeply rooted in our culture, so much so that even in the Bible it is explained with hairs and signs how to stone a disobedient and rebellious son who ignores.
However, although hitting children produces a positive effect in the eyes of parents, the negative effect for children is greater and the balance becomes so unbalanced that, today, hitting children is considered a bad business.
It seems like a good deal for parents
Many parents raise their voices, when you tell them that they cannot beat their children, that it is forbidden, because they say that they will then be uploaded to the beards (or the hump), as if the only educational resource available to us by parents was to beat them to teach them
The reality is that these parents are using a tool that seems to be a good deal, because at the moment it is effective (the child receives a warning, receives pain, is humiliated, punished and then stops doing what he was doing), but what in the long term it can be very harmful and counterproductive.
Let's say that what you believe is the only tool is one of the least recommended, if what you want is to educate a child to be honest and respectful.
“They beat me and here I am”
There are many, mostly, adults who come normal for a father to hit his son to educate him. However, if we see a husband in public hitting his wife, the rejection is instantaneous. This permissiveness for the violence of parents to children, although it is the same violence as the macho one, is given by custom. It is normalized because when we were little we were beaten or because we saw that other children were beaten and it seemed logical to everyone.
That is why it is common to hear people say that when they were little they beat them and that nothing has ever happened to them, or that thanks to it they are the people they are, or that they deserved it, etc. In a great book by Norm Lee, entitled "Being parents without punishment," which can be read for free online, you can read that it is a lie that the cheeks of our parents will not leave a mark for one simple reason: now, as adults, we see normal for an adult to hit their young child (a big footprint, no doubt).
The one who teaches hitting, teaches to hit
It says a very wise phrase that "He who teaches by hitting, teaches to hit". Combined with another magnificent phrase that says "to educate is what we do when we are not educating", because much of our legacy is absorbed by our children by observation and imitation, we have as a result that when we hit our children we are teaching them to hit to other children, to other people or to ourselves, if one day they think something has been done wrong. If they do not do it when they are young, it is possible that this learning takes place when they are older, hitting their children (and who knows if the couples also).
This is serious, but serious is also that hitting someone implies an emotional disconnection, a lack of appreciation, affection, a distancing. Violence is a way of channeling anger, anger of the moment, towards a specific person, often one that we know will not return that anger to us. This is harmful in a short-term and long-term relationship because the one who hits distances and the one who receives too (nobody likes to be hit).
It is also possible that the children who are stuck accept the situation, simply because they don't know a better one. It will seem normal, so normal, that it will seem normal also that other classmates disrespect them or that some unscrupulous teacher humiliates them. In fact, it is known (and it is logical) that many of the girls who were educated with violence by their parents when they were young accept to be treated in a similar way by their partners when they are adults.
"When you hit me, I don't learn anything"
Focusing on the educational aspect of cheek, the most remarkable thing is that, although we believe that children are learning not to do bad things, it is not always the case. The equation if you do A, hit (B) and eventually stop doing A to avoid B, it does not always happen, because many children, intelligent and restless beings, with their little heart, get to learn to do A so that the parents do not know, avoiding B. That is, they do it secretly and lie if they are asked, so that neither father nor mother beat them. As the relationship when they have received cheeks may be more or less impaired, they do not have much trouble lying when necessary to avoid bad times.
In other words, if we hit a child we are not teaching him to internalize some values, nor are we teaching him how he could behave well, but we are teaching him not to do something so that we do not hit him. As parents and educators, we have the mission of teaching them to be critical, to be judges of their actions and to decide to do things well because that way they are respecting other people, but not to avoid a cheek. I want my children to be respectful and not to insult or beat others because I believe that this is how people should be: respectful, humble and honest, and because I want them to believe the same. I don't want them to learn not to insult or not to hit because if they do it comes dad and hits or punishes them.
Confusing respect with fear
There are many parents who believe that their children obey them more because they correct them, or that they respect them more: “you have to teach your child to respect you,” they say, arguing why. However, I respect people and not precisely because they hit me, but simply because they are educated people who also know how to respect.
Respect cannot be imposed, Respect for a father is born in oneself and it comes from feeling good about him, from knowing himself well treated, respected. Come on, that a father must earn the respect of his children, not force them to feel it.
Many of the children who are stuck end up feeling afraid of their parents. It is not respect or admiration, it is fear of being treated badly, that those people they want to love hurt them without understanding their motives too much.
Hitting children is a bad deal
For all this, because they can learn to paste, because they can learn to see being stuck as normal, because they can learn to lie so that they do not hit them, because they feel humiliated and do not feel loved, their self-esteem being affected, and because they may come to fear the people they live with, hitting children is bad business for them.
Photos | Fazen, ellyn. on Flickr
In Babies and more | Violence negatively affects children's brains, Raising without scourges: practical tools, Flogging is useless (I), (II) and (III)
