Should children be punished and what is the right way to do it?

Pain should not be caused to a child, especially a small one! By using physical punishment, adults directly harm the child's personality, which is still only forming. Of course, even the most gentle and calm parents can sometimes get really angry and even spank the child. There is nothing good about this, but if this is an exception to the rule, then it will not harm him either. It is very important that you, having calmed down, explain to him that in your heart you did something that you yourself do not approve of. For example, you need to say: "Sorry, I could not restrain myself. I should not have spanked you." Such words will be understood even by a small child. And most importantly, they are important for strengthening truly friendly relations between parents and a child.

When you punish a child, you are simply reacting sharply and negatively to his bad behavior. Punishment says that you will not tolerate such behavior today and now, but the child does not learn at all how he should behave tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and in a month.

There is not a single kind word to say about physical punishment (although some pseudo-educators, paraphrasing the classics of Marxism, say: "Beating determines consciousness"). Let's start with the fact that you can cripple a child. Even a "light" (from your point of view) spank can be strong enough for the child to lose balance, fall and hit his head or back. A blow to the head can cause a concussion, and to the ear - hearing loss. And it is not at all a fact that the child understood why he was punished. Most children's misdeeds occur due to impulsiveness and forgetfulness. For example, you spanked him for climbing onto the windowsill and knocking over a flower pot. Tomorrow he climbed there again, and you spanked him harder. But such an increase in punishment can eventually turn into real beatings. Research by scientists shows that children who were spanked do not remember at all why they were punished. They are hurt, humiliated and try to run away from the adult, seething with anger, but do not repent at all. Physical punishment does not succeed in appealing to the feeling of remorse for what was done in the child. In this case, it would be more correct to find out what the child wanted to see from this window (maybe there is a car standing there "roaring" like never before) and try to satisfy his curiosity. And only after that, show him the fallen flower pot and explain that "the flower is in pain, it fell and hit itself. After all, when you fall, you hit yourself painfully. In the future, if you want to look out the window, you need to ask someone to move the flower or do it carefully yourself." Then the pity that arose for the flower that was in pain can cause remorse and will be remembered by the child.

Locking a child in a room or forbidding him to leave it is also a stupid punishment. If he experiences such punishment, he may develop an unwillingness to be in that room. It is even more stupid to combine this with turning off the light in it. This is already sadism! (It is not far from mental disorders!)

If you force your toddler to wear a bib all the time just because he spilled soup on himself a few times, you are only asserting yourself at his expense because you are stronger than him and the power in the family belongs to you. By punishing him in this way, you are only making him feel worthless and helpless.

If you are really trying to show your child how to behave, it is not necessary to offend or humiliate him. For example, while playing, your child started throwing toys in all directions (let's say he is pretending to explode). One of them broke. Of course, the child is upset. And instead of scolding him, try to fix it - that is, show that you are upset not by his behavior, but by the fact that the toy is broken and he can no longer play with it. This lesson will be more effective for the child: he will understand that he should not behave like that, otherwise unpleasant events may occur. In this case, the punishment will be what he did himself, and not what you are capable of doing to him.

The task of parents raising a child is not easy: you have to make the child understand what are the results of his own reckless actions, which he has to regret. Any other punishment is perceived by the child as revenge, as a desire to assert himself at his expense. Because of this, he will not want to listen to you at all, to act in your way. You must try to teach the child to manage his emotions and actions, to bear full responsibility for his actions.

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