I can still remember the time when my dad belted me for making my way home on my own from a grocery shopping trip at a nearby shop. Well, I couldn't find him anywhere and feeling worried that he had left me behind, I went home... not like I went wandering off other places. Sure he was worried... but did he consider why I went home alone? I was only about 9-10 then. I still resent that belting and feel it to be unjustified ... or the times when my parents had hit me with a feather duster for crying as I had not wanted to come home prefering to be with my cousins instead... is that anys urprise considering I am an only child? How much attempts did my parents even make to understand the reasons behind their young child's behavior prefering instead to hit and control? The pain has long been forgotten but the pain of having been treated unjustly still remain.
It has made me decide... along with my other training in parenting that I was not going to hit my children. No canes hanging in my home. And I have no intention of getting one... not even as a means of a threat. Yes, I had the urge to hit my daughters occasionally ...when they get on my nerves... come on it happens to the best of us... but I had restrained myself, at the very most I flicked my fingers on their arms. Even then I felt soooo guilty afterwards and still feel guilty abt it today.
I had a very interesting conversation with some of my colleagues yesterday, all 4 mothers of sons and all having canes hanging somewhere in the house... whether utilised or hanging there as a threat. It is so interesting to me how one of them especially advocated caning as effective and something that she would advocate for children below 7 but sparingly and only with good reason. She even had a special cane that would not leave marks, apparently it is out of stock in the markets already, possibly from all her advertising!!
I thought it was interesting how the older generation often lament about the children of today - how different they are, how protected... that even a cane mark could lead the parents to jail... and how all this are making the children of today simply spoilt and out of control. But one thing, they have completely forgotten is how different the society of today is and what the world is today is worlds apart from the world of yesterday. The media, internet, technology all makes the world and therefore the children highly different. It is too simplistic to say that cos the canes are no longer used that the children are becoming uncontrollable ... there is a whole lot of other confounds to the issue. I would say instead that because the world today is so different that new differnt methods of child maangement has to be employed cos the children are different and not the lack of caning that are making the children different.
The difficulty though is that many of the adults my age now had gone thru a childhood where they were caned and where they had not known any other methods of parenting... and they saw this as not having caused any harm to them ... therefore questions the necessity for change... forgetting instead that since the world has changed, the children have changed and therefore the methods must change.
It was with Tasnym that I truly realise how ineffective these methods were as she would just model us and turn around to flick us back after she is done crying and wailing. And we got worried that she would start hitting others in the same way. So time out is the way to go and it has been very effective. Definitely no canes for us!!
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