DISCIPLINE

Discipline has changed drastically throughout the years. Using physical means as a method of discipline in the past has now turned into using verbal discipline. The community these days advocates that striking a child in any way is a form of abusive, even light spanking is considered abuse. Twenty plus years ago the community all agreed that spanking and even using a wooden paddle to discipline was ok, and now we have switched over to our words. From my mother’s point of view, discipline has drastically changed since she was a child.
When interviewing my mother it was obvious that she was disciplined physically as a child. When I asked her views on spanking she answered, “I believe that spanking is perfectly ok as long as the parent doesn’t strike the child too hard. I think that parents should keep their hand open and only spank them on their behind and hand lightly. Parents should only spank their children hard enough to scare them, but not physically hurt them. If a parent spanks them so hard that it leaves a mark then the parent is way out of line and I would consider that to be abuse.” My mother’s views are a mix of what parents did as discipline in the past and what parents do now for discipline. So where does she fit in the community? There is a whole community of mother’s who believe that spanking is ok as long as it doesn’t turn into abuse.
I also asked my mother how teachers disciplined the students when she was a child. My mother’s response was, “I went to a Catholic school, and they were very strict. If a student would disobey a teacher, the teacher would get out her wooden paddle and spank the child.” Given that this is a Catholic school and usually they are way more strict then public schools, but given in the 1960’s discipline was still stricter and more physical then it is today. “Teachers would also make the students write sentences for hours, even if our hands were cramping so bad from writing so much, we still had to keep going.” Even though that may not seem as physical discipline it really is from all the strain the hand goes through into writing so much. Nowadays teachers will not make their students write any sentences. They would rather make their students go into detention and sit and listen to the teacher lecture about how not to act. Back in my mom’s day she would be sent to detention to write sentences either on the board or on paper. Now students are forced to sit and listen to someone verbally discipline them.
When I asked my mother if she thought that using verbal discipline is a far better method then using physical discipline like spanking, and time out, she answered, “Sometimes.” “It really depends on how the child reacts to the way a parent disciplines. For example when I was disciplining my son he would listen right away without any physical discipline. With my daughter, (me), she would not listen to anything I would say. I would threaten to take her toys away, make her stay in her room with no TV, or make her go to bed early, but nothing would work. So I eventually started spanking her, and she finally started to listen. She would obey the first time, because she hated being spanked and knew that was the consequence for not listening to her mother.” Some children are different whether they take their parents seriously by their verbal discipline or physical discipline. The community of parents and discipline varies.
I also asked my mother if she had ever been confronted about the way she disciplined her children and she said, “Yes, I have been confronted. I was in a grocery store and my son was touching everything, even when I told him not to he still did. So I put him in the shopping cart and I slapped his hand lightly and told him “NO TOUCHING”. Some woman came up to me and told me that I was wrong and that I shouldn’t abuse my child. I was extremely offended by this woman whom I didn’t even know! She had no right to tell me how to discipline my children and neither does the government.”
My mother makes a good argument that other people shouldn’t have a say in how we should raise our children. The community is shifting in the direction of not physically touching your child in the form of discipline, but some parents still believe that it is the correct form of discipline.
The last question I asked my mom was if she thought that the concept of discipline has changed drastically throughout the years. “I think that the concept of discipline has changed very drastically throughout the years. Back when I was a child no one would tell a parent how to discipline their child. Not even the government would get involved with a parent’s methods. Now the government is regulating what we can do as a form of discipline, its outrages! I think that the government should stay out of our business when it comes to how to raise our children.”
The community is divided into two separate categories; Parents who discipline their children in the “now times,” and parents who discipline their children in the “Past times.” My mother is a firm believer in both categories. As one read in the interview she believes in spanking, but also believes that in some cases the use of verbal discipline can be very effective. I also agree with my mother’s point of views. I think that her parenting skills were very effective and her method discipline was a good method.
The community has changed throughout the years. What it was then was more physical discipline and what it is now is more verbal discipline. It has changed drastically in such a short period of time. So what will discipline look like in the next twenty years? Will parents get more lenient with their children or will the community turn back to the way discipline was in the past? Who knows what will happen, because only time will tell.