Parenthood: Nature of punishment and its impact on children

To punish means to cause suffering for having done something wrong or committing a crime. Punishments induce fear, shame, guilt, anger in a person and trigger the emotional brain. When flooded with these feelings the thinking brain cannot be engaged and the child is unable to learn the lesson, we want them to. When a child doesn’t feel understood or is physically harmed, shouted at and repeatedly left to cry, a stress hormone called Cortisol is released in the brain. Too much Cortisol is known to kill brain cells. With all this information today, we know from neuroscience how punishment adversely affects the body and brain of the child.

We all understand punishment as causing physical hurt to the child. This could be in the form of spanking, slapping, causing burns, locking the child alone in a room. But does only this constitute punishment?

Many of us believe that if we haven’t hit hard enough, given maybe just a light slap on the back instead, it’s not really ‘hitting.’

“I never hit on the face. Only a rap on the back and shoulders.”

“I don’t believe in hitting. We have a time-out chair where my son knows he will be if he misbehaves. He even chose the chair himself.”

“I just act as if I don’t see my children. I stop talking to them and stop answering them. Then they know.”

“My daughter knows the consequences. No screen time if she doesn’t listen.”

“I give Amir stickers or a treat every time he behaves like a good boy.”

In all the above cases, children suffer. Even seemingly less harmful acts such as giving time-outs, withdrawing love, threatening are all forms of punishment. Punishment is not only about physical pain. Any action carried out to harm the child’s heart, body, mind and spirit is an act of punishment. Dr. Jane Nelson, author of Positive Discipline: The First Three Years, remarks, “Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first, we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?”

1. It builds resentment. Children think, “This is unfair. I can’t trust adults to take care of me.”

2. It germinates the idea of revenge. “I’ll show them when I grow up.”

3. It pushes them to rebel. “You can’t control me. I’ll show you what I can do.”

4. They learn to lie. “I know how to get my way without getting caught. Broke a toy? I won’t own the mistake. Simple!”

5. Reduced self-esteem: “I must be a bad person to deserve this kind of behaviour from people I love most.”

What a vicious battle we have started here!

Okay, I get it, you concede. But wait, I can’t even reinforce positive behaviour? How is giving rewards for good behaviour harmful? In his book Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn explains that rewards and punishment are two sides of the same coin. They are both forms of external control. When a child does not get the reward, it becomes a punishment.

We almost always feel regretful when we have calmed down after punishing them and promise ourselves to not harm our child again. Why are we unable to live up to our own expectations as parents to our young children? There are two reasons for this. One is that we don’t have enough knowledge about the impact of punishment on our children’s developing brains. Neither do we have the skills of other approaches to discipline.

The second reason is that we fall back on what is familiar because of our conditioning. In our workshops, we do an exercise where we ask parents to go back to their own childhoods and think about what they experienced when they were disciplined using such methods. They are often taken aback by what comes up. Most of us still carry the hurt, the fear, all those messages of inadequacy, resentment at not feeling accepted and much more. We need to question,” Why are we doing the same thing to our children?” We have simply not reflected, and we are following the same patterns on autopilot.

There are many tools and methods to discipline our children in ways that are firm yet positive and loving. Once we are fully convinced that punishment is actually very harmful to our children, we can consider it a “blocked road”. And then we will be ready to seek alternative routes to our destination.