“Spare the rod and spoil the child. ” This is a famous saying, almost a principle that parents use to discipline their child when they have gone wayward. What it means is when the child has done something wrong, parents spare the rod. Sparing the rod means, to not punish the child. This way, the child would develop the thinking that mummy and daddy would let me off after a earful of scolding. This would lead the child to start thinking that he would be let off with a scolding being the maximum punishment that he would ever receive for his wrongdoings.
With this mindset, they would grow up and think to themselves, “why didn’t mum and dad beat me then? ” To spare the rod and spoil the child, parents are actually telling their child that they’ll get away with things that they’ve done wrong with a lecture by their authority. Parents, of course, do not realize this disastrous effect. They would carry on their naive thinking that they love their child; therefore they would give up their lives rather than to see a cane mark on the back of their child’s hand. My parents were both fair people, my dad was the discipline master while mum was the counselor.Well, you could either say they blend with each other’s style of discipline or they were worlds apart in their knowledge on child discipline.
There was once when I was about six, my dad was driving my family home from lunch. On the expressway, the little devilish me went to open the door while dad was going at 80km/h. Immediately, my elder brother reached over and slammed the door shut. I went into a mild state of shock. Up to this day I can remember what my dad turned around and said, he said,” you watch out.
He said it in a cold and stern voice. Immediately I knew I was in hot soup.Living up to his fiery nature, my dad took out his leather belt and used the metal buckle to whip me. It felt like child abuse, and it probably was, but it taught me a very important lesson that you would never get away with wrongdoings scot free. While I was recovering from the whips that dad had lashed out on me, I was feeling fine, but mum wasn’t. She and dad went into cold war because she was not happy about dad’s way of punishing me as I was still very young.
Mum believed in slow lecture, but there was always a limit and when that limit had been reached, mum would at most cane our bottoms, nothing like the sort dad revolved to. Mum believed that her way of slow lecture would be enough to let me know what I had done had disappointed her and that she did not want the same thing to happen again. There are pros and cons in the different discipline styles that dad and mum adopted. Dad’s violent style would and probably did instill a “never will get away with things scot free” message into a child’s brain but on the bad side, it might lead to the child becoming more and more rebellious.
Mum’s soothing style would let a child know that she is not happy with the way the child has done things and does not want to see the same happening again. While mum’s reaction might cause the child to think twice before acting as it would be on their conscience, when faced with a tempting prospect of achieving something good despite using the wrong means, would mum’s disappointed face be enough to stop the child? I feel that it could work both ways and it all depends on the child. I was lucky to have lived through both styles of discipline.Dad’s aggressive style and mum’s soothing, calm style were both effective as it has left in me a legacy to think twice before acting. Both styles, though contrasting, worked well with each other in letting me know this very important message. “Although mummy or daddy are angry with you and we beat you, we still love you, like how you will love others in future.
” This message is sufficient for me to not do things that would disappoint my parents and the people I love and care about it has given me a firsthand course on how to discipline my own children in future.
