Recently there has been an upsurge in domestic violence and child abuse cases in the media involving popular football players. The investigations on these cases are ongoing but many people have different opinions concerning these cases and what is really regarded as child abuse. This forum will not discuss theses pending cases. I personally believe that the term child abuse means various things to individuals depending on their social background.

The Wikipedia defines child abuse as the physical, sexual or emotional mistreatment or neglect of a child or children. It also states that the Department for Children and Families (DCF) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the USA further defines maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm or threat of harm to a child.

The phrases: ‘potential to harm or threat of harm’ is a wide definition and so certain disciplinary actions of parents such as spanking or whipping of a child may be considered potential to harm the child and so is considered child abuse.

In the Caribbean the main method of disciplining the children is spanking or whipping. I was brought up by this method and I know for certain that most parents do not spank their children in order to harm them physically.

When it is done in love and fairness and not out of anger, spanking is intended to teach the child that misconduct will be punished. Isn’t this what society teaches us when criminals are incarcerated? When spanking is done out of anger and results in injury to a child then this is considered, in my opinion, child abuse.

Many studies are done by psychologists to prove that regular spanking as a disciplinary method can result in psychological effects on the children. These findings are debatable because other studies will show that most children who received spanking do not demonstrate any negative effects in adulthood.

Parents in the Caribbean most times feel justified in using this method because they believe that the bible sanctions it.

‘Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him.’ Proverbs 22:15

My question is, what is the Rod in the above verse? Is it a stick, whip, belt or strap? I will explore this topic later but let me give you my experience with discipline in my family.

Disciplinary measures used in my family

I have two children and they both have different personalities. As a toddler my daughter was very hyperactive and curious. She was a very happy child so she viewed everything around her environment as an amusing event. She would laugh and play with everything that she could get her hands on. She was also extremely fearful of certain things. These were loud noises such as blender or vacuum cleaner, dancing dolls and spanking.

She started pre-school at three years old and she loved all the different subjects and songs that she was taught in school. However, she viewed her school work as ‘fun activity.’ This meant that when she received home work she would take the books and laugh and play with them as if they were toys.

She would refuse to write her letters or to do the simple arithmetic in the work books even though she was capable of doing them. I realized then that if I did not teach her the difference between play time and homework time she would grew up not taking her school lessons seriously.

So one day while she was dancing with her work book while I was trying in vain to teach her addition, I took her little chubby hand and gave her three little smacks with my hand in the palm of her hand. She immediately stop laughing and dancing and looked at me with tears rolling down her eyes.

Then I point to the book and said, “School work means serious time not play time. After your work is finished then it is play time.” She understood and took the book from me and finished her work.

Since that day anytime that she received home work she would sit quietly and quickly do them accurately so that she would have enough time to play. She loved to play and so that became her incentive to do her school work properly.

As my daughter became older I realized that spanking was not effective because she became very affronted when she was punished in this manner.

My son was a totally different story. As you may know, by my other posts, he was born with a congenital heart disease. His body was not receiving enough oxygen so as he grew older he became very blue. Whenever he was upset the oxygen to his brain decreased and sometimes he would faint.

Therefore we could not allow him to become upset over anything. Thus spanking as a disciplinary measure was out. My son was smart and was aware of this so he used it to his advantage to get anything that he wanted. However, there were times that we could not allow him to have his own way and we had to discipline him. How were we to do this when the only method that we were use to is spanking?

I took the problem to my Lord and he gave me the answer. My son loved toys and he played with them very often because he could not play outside with the other children. Therefore when he was very rude we would temporary take away his favorite toy until he improved his behavior.

As he became older, in order to discipline him I would threaten to take away his cell phone, iPad or to prevent him from attending his favorite extracurricular activity at school such as drama society. I remembered threatening him with the latter and he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said “Mummy you can’t take away drama from me?” He made it appear as if that was the worst thing that I could ever use to punish him and my heart broke in two.

Overall my children are well behaved and I have not seen the need to punish them for anything for years. I thank the Lord for that because he taught me how to communicate and bond with my children so that we could create unity, friendship and love in the home.

Share with us your disciplinary measures in your home. We all need to learn because none of us is perfect.

Say no to child abuse!

Featured image courtesy of David Casillo Dominici/Freedigitalphotos.net