We are already in summer and that means that the children have a party, that many parents also and that in many moments they will spend time together cousins, friends and acquaintances, and also the parents.
And it is already known that when parents get together they just talk about their children, how good they are, how happy they are with them and, when there is trust, of those who bundle them and how they do to solve it: punish them, threaten them, hit them, etc.
This puts us, to those who defend a way of educating children free of violence, humiliation and full of dialogue, respect and patience, in a very frustrating and even uncomfortable position. That is why today we will explain how to respond to those who suggest that hitting children to educate them is positive and necessary.
"When I hit other children I will not be able to tell him that he does not stick, if I hit him"
Not all children hit, but there are those who do. Some do it because have normalized violence and they are simple transmitters of what they see at home, on the street, on TV, ... others, the smaller ones, do so because they are not yet able to express their anger; they cannot say in words what they feel, how annoying they are, and how they cannot verbalize it, nor are they even able to control their most intense emotions, they say it with their hands.
The logical thing, on the part of parents, is to teach children that violence is neither a logical way of expressing anger, nor a way of solving problems, much less a valid method to get what they want.
And besides, the logical thing is to set an example. Paste your child to correct or educate It makes you lose all authority If one day you have to tell him that he can't hit others: "Can't I hit others? Well, you hit me!"
In Babies and more, seven powerful reasons why you should never hit a child"I know people whose parents didn't hit them, and nothing happened to them either"
Because it is a very common argument. They tell you that "hey, because my father hit me and nothing has happened to me, and I also love him a lot and I even appreciate it." And it seems that this is already said.
But what about those whose parents didn't hit them? Are they in an insane asylum? Are they committing and drugging around the corners? No, right?
Moreover, those who lose respect for others and end up being the criminals that we would never want our children to be, what will they say about their parents, that they beat them a lot or that they hit them little or nothing?
Ya, ya ... to end up like this you must have hit him a lot, but a lot. So, if you don't hit him too? Is it not more a matter of transmitting values, of teaching what social norms are and of educating children?
Because after all everything consists of that, in educating them. And it can be done perfectly without humiliation and without harming them by putting them against us, even if it is temporarily.
Therefore, we can calmly say that of "well hey, they didn't hit me and here I am ... nothing has happened to me; and I also love them a lot and I even appreciate it."
Doing someone wrong cannot be a good way to teach them to do good.
And it makes no sense:
- A child learns to respect when he feels respected and sees that at home, his family also respects others.
- Child He is affectionate when he feels loved and he sees that at home, his family has that capacity to love.
- A child is humble when he is taught humility at home.
- A child is kind when he sees that his parents are kind to others.
- A child does not tolerate an injustice when his parents demonstrate his integrity and are outraged at the injustices.
But pretending that hitting a child is going to make him a good person is dangerous. Many times it happens, mostly, because the boy ends up being a good boy even though he was hit (cheeks, hitting him, is a method that can be isolated within a normally affectionate family), but sometimes it does not happen, when the cheek adds to a set of attitudes in which the child does not receive the minimum love he needs, and then the risk of things going wrong, that the child is not a good person, is too high.
In Babies and more The four "R": the negative consequences of punishment in children"Do you really want your daughter to believe that when she does something wrong she deserves someone to hurt her?"
Because if a girl or a boy ends up normalizing, or even a little, physical punishment, it may seem normal to be hit for doing something wrong: a teacher, another adult, a boy in his class, a boy from another class.
The sons and daughters must be taught that they have to defend his body, his physical and moral integrity above all things, and above all we, the parents, who are the ones who spend more time with them. If not even we attack them, that we are the closest, how are others going to do it?
If not, if they accept that when they do something that others think is wrong, they can be harmed, how can they tell us that someone hits them or abuses them? How will they have the strength and arguments to defend themselves? Don't forget that there are abused and abused children who believe they deserve it and worse, than they end up believing that this is normal.
But I don't feel like debating so much
There are people who do not want to debate so much about it, or who do not feel comfortable, or even who are much more categorical: it is that I do not even argue, I release a sharp and clever phrase.
In fact, those who defend the cheek on time are very categorical and argue very little because they don't even really know why they think it's positive. They only know that it has been done for a long time and that children who do not know the rules of family and social life can be too rebellious. As they also don't know any other way of proceeding than cheeks or punishments, they are barely able to develop their premise.
It is in situations like this when they can serve phrases as concise and full of content as "a good cheek on time and everything arranged":
- "Oh, no! Luckily I have other tools to educate my daughter."
- "Hitting a child? I would never do something like that, what a horror!"
- "But what do you say? If this is what our grandparents did! What century are you coming from?"
It basically consists of be totally shocked, as out of place after hearing them say that: with eyes wide open and gesture out of touch.
We have normalized so much that people say that the logical thing is to hit a child who does not shock us, but, would we not like to hear anyone say that he hits his father, his mother, his wife, his husband, to teach them what is right and what is wrong?
Well, the same It is time that we begin to be indignant with it.
In Babies and more How to teach our children that punishment doesn't matter, but the consequences of their actionsPhotos | iStock
In Babies and more | The scourges do not work and are harmful to children, conclude after 50 years of research, Seven powerful reasons why you should never hit a child, "It is never lawful to hit a child", we talk about punishments with child psychologist Silvia Álava
