Licks make children feel they are evil

THE EDITOR: Citizens for a Better Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) believe that corporal punishment in schools is an absolute form of punishment. In a desperate bid to prevent indiscipline and violence among schoolchildren, many are calling for the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools. However, CBTT contends that physical punishment of children will have little or no effect on the behaviour of many students, although we must admit that many citizens are in support of this harsh measure. We believe that children are entrusted to their teachers and parents to be loved, guided and protected and it is a challenge to raise them to become good citizens. There are many positive ways to guide them. Kindness, time spent explaining, wise direction and setting the example of what we want them to become are some of the ways to assist our children.

Teachers and parents who force a child to fear and hate them, may lose their chance to make him or her a better person by talking, because they have closed the child’s ears. We should not try to solve problems with violence. Corporal punishment often makes children angry. It makes them feel they are evil. Discipline is far more than punishment for misbehaviour. In raising our children, we would teach them ethics, rules of conduct, the ability to plan and to learn from experience. Parents and teachers who beat their children should try to win back their friendship. We should communicate with them more effectively and show affection. We should teach our children to be self-disciplined rather than cooperate because of fear. Alternatives to corporal punishment should emphasise positive behaviour of students, realistic rules consistently enforced, instruction that reaches all students, parent/teacher seminars about student behaviour, use of school psychologists and counsellors, detentions, in-school suspension and even weekend school. We should find ways of engaging today’s children in the thrill of learning. Fear of pain has no place in that process.

Our first impulse is often to say, “I got beaten when I was a child and I turned out okay: or “I got hit when I was a kid and I deserved it.” It’s hard for us to think that people who loved us would hit us and we have to bury that pain deep inside us or excuse it. We usually go on to understand that people who hit us, parents and teachers, were doing what was accepted or even condoned at the time. Corporal punishment of children is an at-risk behaviour which can easily lead to chid abuse. Teaching children right and wrong, intervening when they do wrong, praising good behaviour, and establishing expectations for good behaviour help children to become respectful, caring, and responsible adults. Some of us who believe that we benefited from corporal punishment will never know if we could have turned out even better if we had been raised in a firm, loving home without any physical punishment.

HARRACK BALRAMSINGH
President, CBTT
La Romaine