70% of the Earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Al Harris.
Well, let's see, what exactly would that kind of reaction teach a child? To do the dishes when told? That her views and needs are unimportant in comparison to those of others? To fear her father because he's likely to hurt her if she makes him angry?
I say hitting a child in anger is not discipline because it sets a problematic example, and because the child is likely to be responding to anger and fear over anything else. Generally speaking humans don't learn well in those situations.
This is no mystery. It teaches a child that their behavior resulted in a negative outcome among other things. You're not going to get me to defend the practice of getting physical with children, as you say there are much better ways that set a better example, are much more instructive, and cultivate a better learning environment. But poorly executed discipline is still discipline. If this wasn't, very little of what has ever been called discipline actually was. There are probably people on this site that were hit by teachers in school. This type of stuff was a completely normal part of the human experience for thousands of years. I remember reading somewhere that in the medieval legal system kids would be beaten to act as a record for litigation; the idea being if you beat them they'll pretty much remember anything for later testimony. That's pretty much the same conventional wisdom that survived until a blink in history ago.
BTW, the only reason I push on the semantic of discipline or not is because it informs his intentions here. Its the difference between the alcoholic who beats his kids for his own sake vs the parent who does it as an uninformed disciplinarian.
Last edited by 3irty1; 06-29-2017 at 03:17 PM.
70% of the Earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Al Harris.