Spare the rod, spare the child? Not!

FEB 24 — Yesterday, I was appalled to read my fellow columnist’s article about the experiences she and her friends went through recently at a restaurant.

I won’t go into details but suffice to say, I was taken aback by how the parents of these children struck back in both words and action when told to keep their children in check.

I, too, have my fair share of stories to tell, of how I’ve experienced little brats running around causing a huge ruckus in public places. But never have I experienced being told off as my fellow columnist encountered recently.

As parents, my wife and I are mindful of the fact that how our children behave is a direct reflection of our personae, beliefs and our outlook in life. After all, children best learn from examples, and if parents practise bad examples, children will follow suit.

I’ve always believed that children must be conditioned from young to learn behaviour. For instance, as a young parent from the time my two children were born, 12 and 10 years ago respectively, I made it a point to religiously make them learn the basic manners of saying “please” when asking for something and “thank you,” when receiving something

Words such as “excuse me” must be used in the home after a sneeze, burp, even after a person breaks wind. The word “sorry” is certainly not a foreign word in my home.

These basic tenets are non-negotiable. My kids didn’t have the option to not practise them. And to ensure that they practised them, we had to reciprocate and make sure that we, too, practised basic manners. If not, we would be hypocrites and they would point this out to my wife and me.

There are many rules and regulations laid down by the generations of parents before me. I would not suppose to know them all but in the years I’ve been a parent, the three bedrock tenets that I’ve ensured that my kids learn are: responsibility, accountability and the principle that two wrongs, never ever, make a right.

Responsibility means that my children do what they are supposed to do at the right time, at the right place and in the right manner. It requires that, for example, they not give excuses for slacking on house chores or behaving badly when in public by treating public places as their own home, or talking back to their elders, including family and friends.

Accountability is about cause and effect, that everything that my kids do or say results in an effect — whether good or bad — but an outcome nonetheless. It also means that they need to answer for these effects or eventualities.

For example, behaving in an irresponsible manner at home, say with sharp objects, may likely cause them to hurt each other and result in one or the other suffering from cuts and bruises.

Finally, two wrongs don’t make a right. Trying to fix a problem or issue with the best intentions at heart isn’t going to mean anything if the manner in which they try to accomplish it is wrong in itself. We teach them to never try to fix a problem by doing another wrong as such a solution will only make matters worse in the long run.

Today, as I look back, my kids are at the age where they are much older and more responsible and accountable. They have learnt these basic tenets well and are trying to practise them every day.

No, they don’t always succeed but the point is that they try and, thankfully, succeed most of the time. And in times they don’t succeed, I try my best to explain where they have gone wrong and point out the cause and effect of their actions or inaction.

In doing so, they’ve learned to internalise what and where they’ve gone wrong and learnt the kind of effect it has on them, as well as on the people around them.

This process of internalising and explaining where and why they’ve gone wrong is crucial to their positive reinforcement because my kids have been able to develop and appreciate a world view as to what is right and wrong.

They now have the ability to adhere to the rules and regulations not blindly but rationally, thankfully causing them to follow the rules willingly instead of grudgingly.

In my humble opinion, parents must at the end of the day not assume that kids should be given a free pass just because they are young. Bad habits are learnt quickly through conditioning and not nipping them in the bud serves to cause greater heartache later in life.

Kids must be given a framework to work with, a boundary of what is permissible and what is not. Within that framework, there is some leeway for them to behave but if those lines are crossed, discipline must be the order of the day and must be meted out by parents swiftly and firmly.

Simply put, parents need to take responsibility and be accountable for their children’s action or inaction. Abdicating such responsibilities isn’t the way to go because we know this is not how the world works in real life.

Responsibility, accountability and boundaries set by our superiors and the rule of law — in a societal, professional or personal context — need to be practised and adhered to, or else, all hell would break lose.

Now if this is so, why can’t children, too, learn these principles early in life?

By Edwin Yapp
Featured in http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/opinion/article/spare-the-rod-spare-the-child-not/