If the little kiddo misbehave, do I explain to him/her that what he/she doing is wrong and therefore subscribing to humanistic school or should I beat and scold, subscribing to behaviorism school?
Initially I thought that I would not use punishment to discipline my kids, learning in class that we should educate them properly by explaining to them things (therefore modelling good behavior and not aggressive behavior), punishment is not as good as reward so on and so forth.
However, I think my thinking is a little different now. Children remains children. Sometimes, it is useless to explain to them because they do not (or have not) learn how to see from other people's perspective. Sometimes they are just stubborn and at other times, manipulative. So what happens when explaination doesn't does it's wonders? Scolding la. Or beating.
Example: Child sees a toy and refuses to let go. Demands to buy it. So what to do? Explain? If that doesn't work? The all mighty limit setting! ahahahaha.. If they are just plain stubborn, then how?
Recently I read an article written by an Asian lady on why Asians managed to raise typically successful kids as compared to Westerners (in the article, it is specified as U.S. people i think). In the article, the Asian lady (a Chinese) detailed how she scolded and belittled her daughter (7 years old) for failing to practice a piano song. Her husband (which is an 'ang moh') said that her behavior is too much, but she insisted on doing it her way. The daughter tried time after time and failing to play, she threw tantrum saying she would not want to practice the song. The mother FORCED her to play, with threats and for a few weeks stood on her ground. Finally, her daughter managed to learned it, performed in school and got praised for her performance.
That's not the point. The point is that at the night after she manages to play the song for the first time, both mother and child bonded in bed, laughing at how one had treated the other. Her ang moh husband, after seeing how his daughter performed so well on stage, gave his wife the thumbs up.
The problem (according to her) about Westerners parents is that they give up easily because they are too afraid of hurting the kids self esteem. This fear made them give in to almost anything their child wants. When the child throws tantrum, the parents give in. Praise is given to half done jobs for the fear of hurting self esteem. This made them contented.
It is actually very different from how Asian kids are being brought up. If one comes back and scored 90% in an exam, the Western parents would be proud, and probably frame up the paper. For the Asian parents, they will ask (or maybe scold) as to where the other 10% is. This in turn made them strive harder to achieve so called perfection and this never contented feeling drives them to work hard CONTINUOUSLY. Of course, it can be argued that scolding of children even when they get 90% would simply discourage them, but i suppose looking at history, the former case seems to be more of the typical outcome.
So humanistic? or behaviorism? I really think that punishment is a must in disciplining children. I might not think so then, but now it has changed. Why do I say so? Because with punishment, children learns fear, and they need to learn it so that they do not break the rules. It is like pain. If we do not know pain, we won't be avoiding painful things. We might jump from buildings to buildings, got cut and yet know not that it's taking our life slowly. Same like fear. If they do not know fear, they might do things which in reality might harm them and that is bad.
Taking time for self actualization? Bah. Give way for behaviorism. One thing important is that behaviorism must always be accompanied by explanation. Whether or not the child understands is secondary, but as the message is repeated, the child will learn to understand why certain behavior is unacceptable as they grow, and never repeat the same behavior. Understanding is important too, but it only comes when one ages.
God Bless~
2 comments:
I guess we have to make a balance between both. Even in punishment, it is not limited to beating only. And I found out that children this generation couldn't really learn from beating. I guess different children have different ways of teaching, We have to first understand the children first before knowing how to teach.
Yea, of course there must be a balance. That's why I said explanation is important too. Merely beating is abuse.
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