SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:But the overall point here is that had any of us been inclined to follow the child-rearing advice in the Bible, we would have been most unimaginative and used pain as a motivator, rather than reason.
We are all happy that medical science has advanced greatly in the last 4,000 years. We are all mostly thrilled that physics, astronomy, chemistry, engineering and other sciences have advanced in the last 4,000 years.
So why are some people so intent on ignoring the stuff we have learned about child development, human learning and motivation in the past 4,000 years? Do these "spare the rod and spoil the child" proponents look to the medical teachings in the bible for how to cure plague? NO! They go to doctors who use antibiotics so that disease isn't a killer anymore.
So why in the name of God would they restrict themselves to 4,000 year old child rearing techniques when there are so much better techniques around today? In part, I suspect the answer is sheer laziness. It takes time to truly
discipline a child. And I'm using the term, "discipline" in the proper sense of teaching good behavior. It would have initially been much less effort on my part to go and swat the kids when they were squabbling. But what would that accomplish?
It would change the squabbling into crying. But what would they have learned? They sure wouldn't have learned how to amicably solve interpersonal conflicts, that is for sure. So that approach would have never taught them behaviors that would eventually let them work out their conflicts without my intervention. And ultimately, it would have taken far more of my time to deal with what would have become constant fighting, if what I see in lots of other families is any hint.
It is sort of like the question, "Do I tie the little one's shoe laces for him or teach him to tie his own shoe laces?" Initially, it takes far more time to teach the skill than to just do it for him. But over time, it actually saves time to teach him to tie his own shoes. And if you have more than one kid, often the older one takes over the duty of teaching the younger to tie shoelaces. (They love becoming the teacher). Way too many parents want to try to raise their kids without spending a lot of time teaching. If they spend time with the kids, they want that time to always be fun, like going to the park, or going on a picnic or something. They don't enjoy teaching their children life skills, so they avoid that kind of work whenever possible.
It seems to me that there is little point in having children if you don't want to do all the teaching involved. And discipline should be teaching rather than "punishment". By sending a child into time-out, you are teaching that some behaviors are not acceptable in the company of other human beings. (Tantrums are fine in the privacy of your own room if you must have them, but nobody else wants to listen to your screaming and floor pounding, so do that in your room if you must have a tantrum.) By depriving the child of a toy or priviledge or something, you are teaching them that bad behavior results in other people being unhappy with you and refusing to allow (or help you) to get the good things in life.
Hitting kids does not teach them anything good or useful about how to behave in society. True discipline should end up with the child learning good behaviors as opposed to just scaring them into avoiding bad behaviors.
