Last week while attending a public event in my community, I observed some darkness in a family’s interactions. The family was walking toward the parking area (I assume to leave). Their little girl, perhaps about 6 years old, was crying and screaming that she wanted something that the parents* didn’t buy her there. The mom* said something about losing her chance to get it. As they continued, the mom, angry that the girl was talking the way she was, stopped and slapped the girl’s face. The father* yelled something at her as well.
(* these are my assumptions about the roles in the scenario)
I had a desire to intervene, but I could see that things would probably escalate even worse if I did. While the little girl’s attitude and behavior at the time were not desirable, the parents’ behavior in the situation did nothing to make things better. No young child benefits from that sort of harsh treatment. Maybe the parents felt they had done their duty to correct bad behavior or they had made sure the little girl knew who is in control. But the girl still felt bad. She was still upset about the situation. She may have stopped yelling, but surely not without negative things going on inside.
Harsh treatment of children by adults can be an adverse childhood experience (ACE) that is preventable. (Learn more about ACEs here: CDC Fast Facts on ACEs) Things like illness or the death of a family member are ACEs that may not be preventable. Adults who take on the care of a child should always do their best to prevent ACEs that are preventable. Research has found evidence that ACEs in a child’s life can affect their health as adults and even shorten their lives. Research has also found links between harsh treatment of children and various emotional and behavioral problems. Lightward Bound’s research report on parenting in Tooele presents some of the research on parenting behaviors and child outcomes.
When it comes to correcting the behavior of children, I believe there are a couple of key principles that should be followed. First, “punishments” or imposed “consequences” aren’t the real teachers for a child’s behavior. (They can indeed stop a behavior quickly in the moment, of course.) I believe the real teaching element is accountability. A child can be held accountable without any physical or verbal chastisement. Questioning a child about his or her behavior and asking them what they will do in the future can also create accountability. It can help them distinguish the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not–without abuse, without fighting and so on.
The second principle is that children aren’t fully grown adults with adult capacities to think things out and control their behavior. As they mature, they develop more self-control and many bad behaviors can evaporate because they now understand for themselves why a particular choice isn’t a good one. A punishment didn’t get them there though; punishment mainly told them that “someone doesn’t like me doing that.” With maturity and being told about and shown better choices, they can understand why one choice is better than another. This means that adults don’t need to be concerned about every instance of wrong choices a child makes, but rather they need to ensure that children are seeing examples of right choices and hearing about why this is right and that is wrong.
So if we want better results from our children, let’s let give up the harsh control of children. Let’s remember they are on a learning path like any learning path. They will make mistakes along the way, but will learn from the examples and information they are given. It’s a lot like learning math. Someone explains how it works, you watch someone else do it, you try it yourself, someone tells you if you got it right or not. We can teach children about life the same way.