Discipline or Punishment?
By Rexanne Mancini

There's no question that children need discipline - in the form of guidance to teach them life's rules, how to behave and how to get along with others.

It is my belief that discipline needs to be taught with kindness and compassion.

Punitive discipline has always struck me as mean-spirited. I find it more a way for parents and care givers to exercise control and serve up a platter of hurt than an effective discipline strategy.

From an early age, children will respond to how they're treated. If they are treated with kindness, compassion and loving guidance, they will learn to treat others in the same manner. If a child is punished harshly for something they don't yet understand, they will learn that cruelty and harshness are the way to have their needs met.

The difference in kindly guiding our children and harshly punishing them can be explained by imagining this scenario:

As a toddler, your child pulls your much-loved orchid plant out of the pot. Our initial reaction will be shock, dismay and horror. Fine - it's a natural reaction to a shocking and heart-breaking event. The way you convey that this is not an appropriate thing to do makes all the difference. A child who is told "no!" and with an explanation that the plant is hurt and how this hurts you because you love the plant will understand more readily that pulling any plant out of its pot is not cool. A child who is spanked, yelled at or
otherwise attacked for her action will learn that life's mistakes are unforgivable and that it's OK to abuse someone who has made a mistake. She will potentially feel the desire to pull up another plant from its roots when she's not happy with something you've done.

Clearly and calmly telling our children the rules when they break them is a much more effective way to teach children how to react to trauma.

Children who know the rules and break them can still be treated with compassion and kindness. Instead of harshly punishing your adolescent for swearing by slapping him or forcing a bar of soap into his mouth, try explaining how you do not allow swearing in your home and that the next time you hear him/her swearing, you will take away a favorite activity or privilege for a given amount of time. If your child pushes the limit and answers you with a stream of cuss words, act immediately and live up to your threat. If you don't, you will never have your child's respect again. While taking his X-box away for 24 hours might seem harsh, he pretty much asked for it so it’s OK. LOL

Also, consider what you are taking away when you discipline. Not allowing your child to trick or treat on Halloween is pretty nasty and will hurt more than a slap. This is where compassion comes into play. I consider this as harsh as taking Christmas away for an infraction of the rules, which is not something you would probably even consider because Christmas means a lot to you, too. Well, Halloween and trick or treating means probably more to your child and taking this privilege away is, in my book, as bad as spanking or screaming at a child. It's just cruel and, while getting your point across, it will have an impact on your child that goes beyond learning a lesson into a lifelong aversion to authority. Think about it. If your driver's license was taken away for a year every time you were caught speeding, how would that affect your life? Sure, you would watch your speed much more carefully but you would also hold an unreasonable grudge against the authority in question and likely break any other rule you thought you could get away with from sheer resentment. I know I would.


There's definitely a fine line between harsh punishment and effective but compassion-based discipline. The difference in life lessons is learning to respect authority as opposed to learning to resent and fear its control. I would rather my children understand the reasons they're being disciplined so they will be able to make better judgments about their behavior in the future.

Copyright - 2009 - Rexanne Mancini

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Rexanne Mancini is the mother of two daughters, Justice and Liberty. She is a novelist, freelance writer and maintains an extensive yet informal parenting and family web site, Rexanne.com – http://www.rexanne.com -Visit her site for good advice, award-winning Internet holiday pages and some humor to help you cope. Subscribe to her free newsletter, Rexanne’s Web Review, for a monthly dose of Rexanne: http://www.rexanne.com/rwr-archives.html

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