Have you noticed that as a nation, we’ve been suddenly discussing the issue of discipline. It’s come up in terms of how a parent should discipline a child; it has come up relative to what should happen to someone if they are involved in a domestic violence dispute; it has appeared in how an adult should be disciplined if they fail on the job. The Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Roger Goodell events within the NFL have cast a bright light on this issue of discipline.
Let me say clearly at the outset that no one should ever hit to solve their issues. My daughters, when they were young children, as many children do, would sometimes try to solve an issue with hitting. We would stop them, sometimes having to discipline them in the process, and remind them that we do not hit.
But, even in the last paragraph, we stumble into the first part of the problem with this conversation. What are the definitions to the words? If discipline involves spanking, is that hitting? Or is it beating? If someone says “my parents gave me a good beating for punching my sister,” is that person saying that got a spanking or are they suggesting their parents used a weapon or clenched hand to strike them?
I am not certain anyone can make definitive definitions for everyone else, hence part of the problem. So, as perhaps is understandable, most people have backed away from the discussion, suggesting that any form of discipline that involves physicality is bad. I’m not sure, however, if that is the best decision. Why?
Discipline, at its root, is a tool to bring correction, either from a poor or wrong action or to create a new, correct action. When I was young and thought of straying into the road (a poor and wrong action), my parents would discipline me, most often through a loud voice, calling me to obedience. In the tone of the voice, I learned that to fail to obey would lead to other consequences. At times, the discipline had to involve other consequences such as my mother grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the road.
Or, when I was swimming, my coach disciplined me to not breath coming out of my freestyle flip-turn. He would do this first through several repetitive drills that aided my grasp of a new, correct action. Later, if I chose to breath out of the turn, he would remind me, either with a private word at the end of the swimming or, at times, a very loud voice or whistle and then strong words of admonishment. To be clear, there was no mistake what he wanted. The final form of discipline was how he would use my swimming times, usually from an actual meet, to show me either the success of the learned activity or the failure to implement the action. In the latter case, the failure of a better time was a form of discipline, both in personal disappointment and sometimes group embarrassment to not improve.
In both of these examples, the clue of discipline is revealed. Discipline must cost me something, and pain is an effective method of cost…though it is not the only kind. Discipline must happen in a way that I realize the cost. That cost can be hearing the loud voice and realizing that the voice is aimed at me, warning me that failure to implement the correct behavior could bring a heavier cost. The cost can be a removal of something valued, such as the child not being allowed to play outside with friends or not being allowed to enjoy TV or their computer devices.
And yes, the cost can be physical. When I, either alone or with my teammates, had to run laps or do pushups as a discipline, there was a physical cost to the failure to do something right. And yes, when my parents spanked me, either with an open hand or yes, at times with a belt, the physical pain was clear that the cost of failing to obey was real.
This issue of discipline connects to what I wrote earlier about a lack of respect. Each child I have ever worked with, including my own children, have come out of the womb with their own attitude, own opinion and own desire to do only the things that feel best to them. When the child has screamed, not because they are hungry but just mad, and made it clear that they would not be quiet until they got a bottle or breast to suckle, that was an act of the will. Left unchecked, as many children have been in the past thirty year, the will of the individual rises to the level that it holds no respect for another other person or will.
This is, by the way, one reason we see conflict between boss and worker, teacher and student, police and citizen. And yes, that source of conflict can originate with the holder of power in those pairs….the police, teacher or boss can be the disrespectful one who does some act that leads to a negative interaction.
A lack of discipline early in the life of a child, or poorly implemented discipline by the parent, is a path to having no concept of why there are rules or why respect is needed. A civic society exists in history when it is clear that a relationship exists between the inhabitants. Rules are created in order to maintain that relationship. In a society built on a mutual respect for the other person, fewer rules are needed, but even in those settings with fewer rules, the idea of training to understand and respect the rules is critical. We simply are not born to consider the other ahead of ourselves.
So, while we continue to have the conversation about discipline…and yes, we must end abuse. By the way, abuse through discipline is yet another example of a former child who did NOT learn proper respect through proper childhood discipline….thus, the parent or authority figure misuses their power, turning to abuse and violence….while we continue this chat, we cannot decide to end discipline. Nor can we merely adopt a weak form of discipline that actually accomplishes nothing other than to reinforce to the child that they really can ignore someone trying to implement rules.
Discipline must cost something, typically involving pain—the pain of loss, the pain of exclusion, the pain of something physical. The discipline has to get our attention or it simply means nothing.