Chengz

Spare the rod and spoil the child
On 18th November, The Straits Times published an article titled, “To cane or not to cane?” focusing on issues like the recent spike in child abuse cases and the most debated topic –Is sparing the rod inevitably spoiling the child? Today, we shall delve into the world of parenting and have our own insights on the topic itself.
Parents often claim that spanking is only a method used to control the pandemonium and castigate their children, but how many parents dare declare that they have never abused their authority and used it as a channel to vent their anger on their kids? If you see your one-year-old tearing up your blueprint that you have spent the past three hours laboriously working on, would you not fly into a rage and grab that cane lying within arm’s length? Would you be controlled enough to not leave a mark on your child’s arm and effectively deter abhorrent behaviour as well as teach him the consequences?
Now consider this, if you witness your older child hitting your one-year-old for breaking one of the older sibling’s toys, what would you do? Would you spank the child for bullying the one-year-old? Is it wrong to say that the older child was merely imitating his parents to execute punishment on the younger one?
All moms and dads get angry at their children. Feeling anger when we are interrupted for the umpteenth time, confronted with serious dawdling when we're in a hurry or find a mess the children made just after we cleaned up is normal. However, for a child to see mommy or daddy lose their cool, it is very terrorizing. Furthermore, children quickly learn to recognize ‘amiable’ and ‘antagonistic’ faces and they turn away from the latter.   Similarly, spanking makes the child dislike the parent, perhaps only temporarily but this takes away the best thing parents have in favour for them when it comes to getting kids to behave- the child's loving desire to please the parent they love. Moreover, the young child is also...