Imagine if you will this scenario: Riley is a seventeen year-old girl, out with friends on a Friday night. She ends up at a party and for whatever reason decides to partake of some of the drinks foisted on her by a large linebacker she knows from school. After hours of drinking, she realizes that the room is spinning, the boys are getting a little too grabby, and that drinking was a very bad idea. She wants to go home. She looks around in vain for someone sober enough to drive her car home. No one at the party is in any better shape than she is and the linebacker is eyeing her like a slab of meat. Sobbing and scared, she takes out her cell phone and dials her parents. ”Mommy, will you come get me?” I want to come home and,” she sobs into her phone, “I am too drunk to drive.” A few minutes later, she sneaks out the front door and walks down the street to the bus stop where she told her parents to pick her up. As her head clears and she begins to sober up, she is feeling good about the fact that she came to her senses. She hopes her parents will not be too disappointed. After all just last week hadn’t she given her Dad a ride to pick up his car from the parking lot of the bar he had taken a cab home from the night before? Riley was totally unprepared for her parents’ reaction. As he takes her car keys from her outstretched hand, her father spits punishments at her through his clenched jaw, “You are grounded for six months, I am taking the keys to your car, and there is no way in hell you are ever hanging around with Sara again!” Riley begs and pleads for him to reconsider and when he will not respond talk to her she screams, “Oh, so it is okay for you to be too wasted to drive but I am supposed to be perfect?” Her mother’s hand shoots out cracking her across the cheek. “Don’t speak to your father that way ever again, young lady.” Riley’s muffled sobs are the only sound heard as her father drives home in stony silence. Flash forward almost a year. Riley is almost eighteen and about to graduate from high school. She and her friends are at a senior party and she decides once again to have a drink or two. One or two drinks turns into several and Riley realizes she is too drunk to drive home is completely torn as to what to do. She knows she shouldn’t drive but she still remembers the shame and humiliation her parents put her through last time. There was no way she wanted to go through that again. What if they grounded her again? She would miss all the graduation parties. What if they found out Sara was with her? Her parents have no idea she has been hanging around Sara behind their backs. She brushes off the idea of calling them, gets in the car, and puts the keys in the ignition. Two hours later, her parents are awakened by a shrilling telephone. Riley lost control of her vehicle, wrapping her car around a tree. She and Sara were pronounced dead on the scene.
Child rearing experts across the country are beginning to realize what this example illustrates. Punitive punishment is not an effective method for raising children who make good decisions. While punishment may achieve immediate results, ultimately children are not responsive to this sort of controlling behavior. Upon close examination, it is easy to see that punitive punishment teaches a child disrespectful behavior and undermines the relationship between a parent and child. In addition, children who are punished often display long lasting psychological effects such as decreased moral internalization. Because of these negative effects, parents must become more aware of the repercussions of their disciplinary measures.
Respect is a fundamental right of every human being but for some reason this right is overlooked when it comes to raising children. As parents, we are often guilty of saying and doing things to children that we would never dream of saying or doing to an adult, especially one we love. In a recent study over 90% of parents admitted to yelling, screaming, and shouting at their children aged four to 17, while 94 percent of American parents spank their child by the time they are 3 or 4 years old” (Benokraitis). Yet few of us would consider using these tactics to solve problems in our adult relationships. In fact, assaulting an adult will land you in jail!
These considerations are pertinent in light of the basic tenant of child development that children learn through imitation. According to Steve Duncan, MSU Extension Family and Human Development Specialist the “Children learn first and foremost from the example set for them by adults significant in their life. Youth, especially, are likely to dismiss our pleadings for moral behavior unless our "walk" is consistent with our "talk” (Duncan). The uselessness of physical and verbal punishment becomes clear when one accepts the fact that the only way a child will truly learn to be respectful and thoughtful is to be treated respectfully and thoughtfully. Punitive measures are rarely related to the infraction for which the child is being punished. This injustice is compounded by the fact that often parents hold children to a higher standard than they do the adults in their lives. As one thirteen-year-old of my acquaintance put it, “When you don’t get all your chores done in a day, no one takes away your computer for a week” (Curry).
Punitive punishment has been linked to many undesirable behaviors. According to researcher, Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff her meta analysis of over 88 studies conducted in the last 62 years showed that the studies “indicate parental corporal punishment is associated with the following undesirable behaviors and experiences: decreased moral internalization, increased child aggression, increased child delinquent and antisocial behavior, decreased quality of relationship between parent and child, decreased child mental health, increased risk of being a victim of physical abuse, increased adult aggression, increased adult criminal and antisocial behavior, decreased adult mental health, and increased risk of abusing own child or spouse. Corporal punishment was associated with only one desirable behavior, namely, increased immediate compliance” (Gershoff). This is a serious list which substantiates Alfie Kohn’s statement that “punishment and misbehavior and are not opposites that cancel each other; on the contrary they breed and reinforce one another” (67).
Less severe methods of punitive punishment do not fare much better under scrutiny. Child advocate Alfie Kohn points out research in which children who were punished by time-outs and other forms of “love withdrawal” were very rigid in their treatment of others showing very little compassion. “They failed to take specific circumstances into account,” and do not necessarily, “consider the needs” of others (Kohn, 31). Again modeling appropriate behaviors comes into play as we parents who want our children to grow up to be compassionate pause to ask ourselves if we are treating our children compassionately. When we examine punishments parents dole out to children such as revoking privileges, time-outs, logical consequences and other punitive measures, the answer is usually, “no”. Ask yourself this, when is the last time someone timed your telephone conversations, or grounded you for arriving home twenty minutes late when you lost track of time?
Perhaps the most distressing turn punitive punishment can take is when it undermines the relationship between a parent and child. “We often make children feel powerless, forcing them to submit to our will, this often generates intense anger, and just because that anger can’t be expressed at the moment doesn’t mean it disappears” (Kohn, 55). Kohn goes on to discuss the consequences of imposing feelings of helplessness on children. He believes that children deliberately provoke new arguments to try to regain some power. Others may search for power in other ways such as bullying siblings or friends. Often times these conflicts carry over into adulthood and harm relationships irreparably. As one young parent stated, “My mother is a control freak. She wants everything to be her way, the “right” way. I can’t be honest with her about my choices in life so I prefer to see her as little as possible” (Hoffelt).
The overwhelming evidence that punitive punishment is never necessary or appropriate leads to an obvious question. “What is a parent to do, instead?” Aletha Solter, Ph.D., Founder and Director of The Aware Parenting Institute stresses the importance of “looking for underlying needs, and “re-directing” a younger child’s behavior when appropriate (Solter). Thomas Gordon recommends changing a younger child’s environment to deal with unacceptable behavior (139). With children of all ages, the parent must move from their role as dictator to one of facilitator-viewing children’s mistakes as opportunities for growth or “learning opportunities” (Coulter). In many families, this involves a significant departure from previous parenting practices. There are many ways of approaching these “learning opportunities”. Solter sees nothing wrong with allowing natural consequences to occur (Solter). On the other hand, Alfie Kohn believes the message natural consequences send to a child is that the parent “could have helped but didn’t” (Kohn, 66). Regardless of which paradigm a parent ascribes to, Kohn stresses that the most important action parents need to take is to dismiss the notion that they must control their children’s behavior. He contends that, “The way kids learn to make good decisions is by making decisions, not by following directions” (169).
With this directive in mind, it is easy to see why it is important to involve children in decision-making processes from an early age. Parents dedicated to truly changing the dynamics of their relationship with their children have been doing exactly this since Thomas Gordon wrote Parent Effectiveness Training in 1970. Gordon proposes a method of problem solving that that first involves identifying your child’s needs. In order to do this, Gordon suggests active listening. Active listening involves a parent hearing a child out completely, and then re-stating his or her understanding of the child’s feelings or needs. This gives the child the opportunity to correct any misunderstanding the parent may have (Gordon, 94). Once the child’s needs are properly identified, parents are encouraged to use “I Messages” which convey the parent’s needs to the child (Gordon, 115). The parent and child then brainstorm possible ways to address these needs in a manner agreeable to both. While Solter sees nothing wrong with allowing natural consequences to occur, Kohn believes the message this sends to a child is that the parent “could have helped but didn’t” (Kohn, 66). They then pick the best alternative from the list, and implement it. Both parent and child need to be open to re-visiting and revising the plan if this original solution is not effectively meeting both their needs (Gordon, 241). This approach crops up repeatedly in positive parenting books. In Siblings Without Rivalry, authors Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish suggest the institution of “family meetings” in which parents facilitate a similar problem solving process between feuding siblings (147). Lawrence Cohen suggests calling for “Meeting on the Couch” instead of a traditional “time-out” in Playful Parenting. During these “meetings”, parent and child are both allowed to vent frustrations in a positive manner similar to Gordon’s “I-messages” (Cohen, 235). Regardless of the terminology, there is clearly a wealth of information available to parents invested in creating a peaceful, respectful home environment, thus avoiding the pitfalls of punitive punishment.
Let us revisit our original scenario for a moment. If Riley’s parents had focused on the original problem as an opportunity for learning and growth, instead of trying to control her behavior with punitive edicts, it is far more likely that the outcome of this situation would have been much improved. Hopefully she would have been more honest with her parents instead of sneaking around with friends who were obviously not a good influence. More importantly, she would not have been so hesitant to call her parents when she needed their help, if she knew they would treat her respectfully. In the best case scenario, Riley would have been so proud of her decision to stop drinking and call home, that she would never have made the mistake of drinking excessively again. Who knows? The question we have to ask ourselves as parents is, “Are we willing to try something different in order to have a better relationship with our child than we have with our own parents?” Let your answer to that question be your guide.
Works Cited
Benokraitis, Nijole. Marriages and Families: Changes, Choices, and Constraints. Fifth Ed. New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005.Couter, Laurie M.Ed. LMHC. “Discipline vs. Punishment”. Child Advocate.Org. 2005 http://www.childadvocate.org/2c.htm
Curry, Riley. Personal Interview. 14 March 2006.
DeVet, K.A. (1997). Parent-adolescent relationships, physical disciplinary history, and adjustment in adolescents. Family Process, 36, 311-322.
Duncan, Steve.” Family Matters: Fostering Moral Behavior in Children” MSU Extension http://www.montana.edu/wwwpb/home/morals.html
Faber, Adele, Elaine Mazlish. Siblings Without Rivalry. New York: HarperCollins, 1998
Gershoff, Elizabeth. “Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review”. http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/pdfs/Gershoff-2002.pdf. pg 6
Gordon, Thomas. Parent Effectiveness Training. New York: Plume Books, 1970.
Hoffelt, Stephen. Personal Interview. 15 March 2006.
Kohn, Alfie. Unconditional Parenting. New York: AtriaBooks, 2005.
Solter, Aletha Ph.D. “Twenty Alternatives to Punishment”. Aware Parenting Institute. 2005. < http://www.awareparenting.com/twenty.htm>
Straus Murray, Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Antisocial Behavior of Children.