In Defense of Being Thumped |
Once again the pendulum of history may have swung too far. Sweden has now passed a law forbidding parents to swat their kids … at all. No slap on the hand when tiny Helga goes for the hot stove. No pat on the backside as little Olaf turns blue and screeches because he wants a taste of the akvavit.
Here in Arizona teenagers, claiming child abuse, regularly turn their parents in to CPS for denying them the car keys.
But … sometimes I wonder if a little thump might not be salutary. Having been in the kid-raising business for almost 30 years (and having a 15-year-old in the house means just a few more), I’ve seen my generation raise a generation that’s raising a generation that maybe, might, possibly, just be aided and assisted by a swat on the fanny once in a while.
I don’t advocate child abuse – I came from that school. I’ve worn bruises.
But what kept me – and, I believe, my generation – on the straight and narrow was: "I can’t do that. My folks would KILL me!!"
We knew that murder wouldn’t really be in the cards. But the faint possibility always hovered in the backs of our minds. After all, Dad was big. And he did swat us. So we passed up doing a lot of really neat fun stuff that probably would have killed us if our parents didn’t.
I do believe in the School of Natural Consequences: don’t do your laundry, you wear dirty clothes, and so forth. But some things don’t have immediate, understandable consequences – like making good grades. To a 15-year-old, where’s the payoff? Why should she finish high school? She already knows more than Mom! He’s much smarter than Dad, who knows nothing about wassup in today’s world!
At a recent reunion, my old schoolmates discussed why we were, almost all of us, college graduates. It was simple. We brought home good grades because we’d get killed if we didn’t. And gradually we internalized the success – we gained "self-esteem." We gained self-reliance because we succeeded, not because the teachers patted us on the head and passed us because we "tried." We universally derided the teachers who didn’t demand excellence, and extolled the ones we had once hated because they were unyielding in their standards. One teacher, the most reviled in school, attended this reunion one night. She had brooked no slackers, allowed no excuses, and everyone had despised her. Yet the number of adults who approached her with tears of gratitude was astounding. She received a standing ovation.
Children are not young adults. Our complete reasoning capacities, it is now known, are not in place until 28 years of age. Logic doesn’t always work.
Explaining to Jimmy that grades are important; telling Linda that even if she doesn’t get caught, shoplifting is still wrong … these have no immediate consequences, but with long-term catastrophes. Try telling a teenager who has skipped school that he’s hurting himself. Yeah. Or explain to a three-year-old that he has to eat vegetables instead of a quart of ice cream. Neither can see the long-term consequences.
And maybe, just maybe, if the kid knew that Dad would kill him if he didn’t get up and mow the lawn Saturday morning …
Nah. He’d still be in bed.