Punishment

            As a parent I need to teach my children right from wrong. This needs to be done in a multiple step process. First, I need to teach my children to behave. Second, I need to teach them to understand why they need to behave. And third, I need them to accept and believe that the difference between right and wrong is based on a truth that transcends my authority or any earthly authority. In a nutshell, I need to teach my children morality, we don’t not steal because we’re afraid of punishment, but we don’t steal because it is morally wrong. C. S. Lewis, the great Christian writer, talked of a universal human morality shared by all humans. All people are born with this universal morality, but we often choose to ignore it and behave badly anyway. My job as a parent is to teach my children to tap into this universal morality and not ignore it. Eventually, I want my children to be driven by internal consequences (guilt and morality), not external consequences (rewards and fear of authority).

In order to teach my children right from wrong, I have two tools at my disposal, reinforcement and punishment. There is much psychological research into the effects of reinforcement and punishment. The great psychologist B. F. Skinner demonstrated repeatedly the ability to use reinforcement alone to create incredible changes in behavior. In fact, a whole field of therapy called behavioral therapy incorporates the principles of reinforcement to change all kinds of troubling behaviors ranging from phobias to drug addictions. Skinner warned against the use of punishment, however, advising parents to never use it. He argued that punishment is often rewarding to the person administering the punishment and it teaches the person being punished that aggression is an acceptable solution to a problem. I love Skinner, but I think he goes too far to dismiss punishment directly.

In the past in America, it used to be acceptable to use corporal punishment (physical punishment). In fact, it used to be perfectly acceptable for almost any adult to punish almost any child in almost any way at almost any time. Today, if a teacher were to use physical punishment they would probably be out of a job. I’m afraid that there is no consensus on this issue. However, I did hear a very interesting sermon once at an American church which helps to clarify the issue. According to the sermon, physical punishment can be used under certain conditions. First, the physical punishment cannot be too severe. Second, it cannot be degrading to the child. And third, the person administering the punishment cannot take any pleasure from it, the punishment must be delivered unemotionally.

However, punishment comes in two types. Positive punishment involves adding something undesirable (such as a spanking). Negative punishment, on the other hand, involves removing something desirable (as when we take away a child’s favorite toy). With my own children I use a combination of reinforcement and both positive and negative punishment in my attempt to not only make them behave properly, but to truly teach them right from wrong. When my children were very young I used physical punishment to stop bad behavior. When one of my children runs in a parking lot, I immediately slap their hand. This behavior needs to be stopped immediately because there is no room for error, the potential outcome could be deadly. Physical punishment is the way to terminate behavior quickly. However, now that my children are older and able to better understand, I’ve explained why running in a parking lot is wrong. However, more commonly I need to teach my children more complicated things than simple behaviors, things such as sharing and being considerate of others.

When my children act inappropriately in situations like these I generally fall back on giving them “time out”, a time when they cannot do anything fun, just sit and stare at the wall. I follow this with a discussion with them about why their behavior was wrong. I believe that time out is unique to American culture and the current generation seems to use this in place of corporal punishment these days. America is hypervigilant to the problem of child abuse and the last thing you want is to be accused of it. We cannot use physical punishment on the spur of the moment when we are angry, this will get us in trouble. I’m a little concerned that some American teachers are not aware of Korean culture and might disagree with the Korean way of disciplining children, leading to a misunderstanding. This kind of misunderstanding could bring unfortunate consequences and you need to be aware of these cultural differences.