discipline

Present-day America is so concerned with the prevention of child abuse, that we have perhaps become overly conscious of our parents. The distinction has to be made between abuse and discipline. When does spanking stop being okay? What are the guidelines?

If a child misbehaves, and the parent smacks them, I find that completely justified. Even if it leaves a mark, as long as the child is not seriously hurt, I would categorize this scenario as discipline and not abuse. The difference lies in the reasoning behind the beating, and the extent of the beating.

The discipline a parent enforces on their child should be reasonable based on the action of the child. Let’s say a child was playing with a toy in a store, and left the store without thinking to put it back. They unintentionally stole. The child needs to be punished so they learn to be more conscious of themselves and they should probably be forced to apologize to the owner of the store. But if the parent yells obscenities and bruises the child as ‘discipline,’ the punishment has become abuse.

This subject is tricky because it deals with basically defenseless humans. But defenseless or not, children act out and need discipline in their lives.