Being a first time mother, I am constantly worrying about the small things in life, like when is it too early to start correcting my child. What kind of punishment is acceptable and will teach my child to become the best he can be, and what is too much? With that being said, my attention was drawn to the story I saw in the news this week about a mother that used hot sauce and a cold shower for punishment to her child. http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/mom_in_spotlight_for_hot_sauce_and_cold_shower_discipline/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/hot-sauce-mom-jessica-beagley-charged-child-abuse/story?id=12796871
This lady in the news feels that it is okay to punish children with hot sauce because it is only a brief moment of pain that could save a child from a lifetime of pain. She was shown on the Dr. Phil show in November where they played a video of the incident that another one of her children had recorded. It showed her punishing her seven year old, Russian adopted son, with hot sauce and a cold shower for lying. Just where do you draw the lines in these kinds of situations? The lady is now being charged with child abuse. I feel that she was very wrong for doing this in front of her other children. Not only was her son punished, but may have felt humiliation as well. The other problem is, there are books out from what I understand that teach that this kind of discipline is wrong. In my opinion, any discipline that brings physical harm to a child is wrong. When it comes down to a person's control issues getting in the way of child punishment, one really needs to be careful because it can lead to abuse without one thinking. That being said, every child is different, and every child may learn differently. Also, I'm not an experienced parent, so I do not mean to point fingers and act like I know it all. I know how I was raised, and I believe I was raised well, and far from abused. But, just where is the line drawn these days? I just try to take one day at a time, and learn from my son, and pray that God shows me what to do in as kind of a manner as possible.
I understand not being sure how to discipline your child appropriatly. I have a child that is about to turn 7 and he has learning and psychological disorders. I learned many of my methods of discipline from Supernanny that were actually very effective. I had great success with some things I learned and they have had a lasting effect. And none of them involved hot sauce or cold showers (which I find to be very cruel). It is very hard to decide sometimes what to do. I favored putting my child in time out 1 minutes for their age so if they are 2, they get 2 minutes and so on...
ReplyDeleteI can't believe the kinds of ways parents punish their children! I agree that physical punishment is not right. I believe that time-out is a very good tactic. Growing up, my dad used to put me in time-out and I begged to be spanked!
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