The recent changes in South African legislation on corporal punishment reignited the debate on spanking children as a form of discipline. Unfortunately, the predominant thinking amongst most South African parents is that it\u2019s a no-brainer: of course you should.<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, there have been numerous studies published in peer reviewed journals on the fact that there are literally no good outcomes from spanking (Elizabeth T. Gershoff, 2016). But scientific evidence is unlikely to convince most pro-spanking parents that spanking children is a futile exercise in discipline.<\/p>\n
I often say that spanking is lazy parenting, and the reason why I say this is often obscured in the barrage of \u2018I was spanked and I\u2019m fine\u2019 or \u2018The Bible tells me to spank my child\u2019. The pro-spanking group often erroneously believes that non-spanking parents just \u2018tell their children not to do something\u2019. It\u2019s not that simple. And this is where the hard work comes in.<\/p>\n
For smaller children I\u2019ve often used the principles set out in 1-2-3 Magic\u00a0Parenting<\/a>, along with those taught by a local child psychologist.<\/p>\n STEP 1<\/strong>: You need to stop the transgression immediately, and confront the child in an age-appropriate way about their actions. They know, more often than not, that what they\u2019re doing is wrong. That\u2019s step 1.<\/p>\n STEP\u00a02<\/strong> is asking them to choose an option: the right action and a positive consequence, or the wrong action and a negative consequence. And this step, right here, is really hard work. My biggest challenge at every age, was figuring out our child\u2019s \u2018currency\u2019; the thing that makes them tick. At one stage it was our son\u2019s action figures, at another, our daughter\u2019s dress-up clothes. Then it became Lego, and then it became screen time. It changes, frequently and sometimes drastically. The other catch is that you need to make it a choice that\u2019s realistic for you: don\u2019t threaten with no-screentime-ever-again-in-the-future-of-forever<\/em>, because it\u2019s impossible to follow through. I\u2019ve abandoned a shopping cart in the middle of a supermarket because of this. I\u2019ve had to leave social engagements sooner because of it. More recently, I\u2019ve had to spend a (rainy) school holiday at home with no screen time, no TV, no movies, nothing. It was punishment for me too, but I know our son felt it much more keenly than I did.<\/p>\n STEP 3<\/strong>\u00a0is putting it back to the child in the form of \u2018who made this decision\u2019. The child needs to understand that the choice was totally and utterly theirs to make, and they are responsible for the actions that follow, positive and negative. Honestly, for each of our children, it was two weeks of close to emotional hell for us, until the penny dropped and they realised that they are responsible for their actions, and also for the resulting outcomes.<\/p>\n Things change as they grow older, and of course your strategy needs to adapt, but the basics remain the same: for every action there\u2019s a consequence, and you, as child, are responsible for your choices, and the resulting outcomes. Its hard work, mostly for the parent, but the long term benefits is supported by scientific research. You also don\u2019t end up teaching violence is wrong, by employing violence.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to find Protective Behaviours, an NGO dedicated to the goal of creating a safe environment for kids and adults.<\/p>\n Note: If you enjoyed this article, and would like to stay updated with more, you can:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I often say that spanking is lazy parenting, and the reason why I say this is often obscured in the barrage of \u2018I was spanked and I\u2019m fine\u2019 or \u2018The Bible tells me to spank my child\u2019. The pro-spanking group often erroneously believes that non-spanking parents just \u2018tell their children not to do something\u2019. It\u2019s not that simple. And this is where the hard work comes in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":353643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-15274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discipline","tag-spanking"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n