Punishment encourages minimum behaviors-just enough to avoid punishments. Extrinsic forces work only if the outside force is present.
Punitive Schools
Visitors sense the atmosphere in a school within minutes. The students are friendly and smiling or snarling and angry. Bullying may be rampant or rare. Graffiti is absent or quite visible. There are many signs that reveal the tone in a building.
When punishment is the dominant strategy, tension is everywhere. Both teachers and students are tense. Students are tense looking over their shoulder and teachers are tense trying to be everywhere to enforce rules.
"Psychologists believe that punishment won’t work because you can never punish in a way that meets the requirements for the effective use of punishment that psychologists have defined:
Immediacy
Severity
Consistency
When punishment is used to control behavior, people perform at a level just sufficient to avoid the punishment. Speed limits are an example. If the speed limit is 55, most people drive 60-63 m.p.h. because they know if they go over 65, they will be punished." [gosmallbiz.com]
Parenting With Dignity
Mac Bledsoe’s book, Parenting With Dignity, is based on investigation of human behaviors. "Buck Minor, the cowboy on our ranch, used to always say, "If you teach an animal a lesson by meanness or cruelty, don’t be surprised if the animal remembers the meanness and cruelty and forgets the lesson!" [Mac Bledsoe, parentingwithdignity.com]
Focus on Punishment
Bledsoe gives several reasons why punishment does not work. Punishment guarantees resistance to the artificial punishment—spanking, grounding, or loss of privileges. The child is so focused on the punishment that the inappropriate behavior is all but forgotten. Trying to change a child’s behavior will create resistance. Adding punishment will increase the resistance. A spanked child will be thinking about the pain, how much they dislike the parent that inflicted the pain, and how they will try to not get caught next time. The child is not thinking, "Wow. I should not have used those inappropriate words. I will turn over a new leaf and never use those words again." No. The child is thinking how they will use the words next time without getting caught. [Mac Bledsoe, parentingwithdignity.com]
Anger Toward the Punisher
When the child is punished, this allows the child to be justified to have anger toward the punisher. It gives them someone to blame instead of looking at the behavior that put them in this situation. A child that was spanked for running in the house will plan to run when adults are not around.
Effect Extinguishes Rapidly
The effect of punishment is quite short. As soon as a child is released from the consequence or when the bottom stops hurting, the behavior is likely to return quickly. The focus was not on the behavior but on the punishment. The punishment is over – I am free! The punishment cycle becomes a game of cat and mouse. "I’m going to get smarter at not getting caught."
Punisher Is Trapped
The person following through with the punishment must but be on guard at all times. The child will be testing how vigilant the enforcer actually is. In fact, a child that has broken one rule may just push the envelope to see how many other rules they can break and not get caught.
"It is not the duty of adults to create new punishments, but rather to point out the negative consequences inherent in the child’s negative actions…and to suggest positive alternatives. [Mac Bledsoe, parentingwithdignity.com]
Copyright article 2008 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
The copyright of the article Punishment Doesn't Work in Educational Issues is owned by Barbara Pytel. Permission to republish Punishment Doesn't Work in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
What a load of bs. Training a child with quick, consistent and yes,
painful consequences (without being mean or angry) will result in a change
of behavior. Dishing out paddlings mixed with angry words and physical
wrangling of a child is not the proper way to affect a change. As a father
of six, it worked on every one of them. No. 1 for a parent or a teacher,
Don't repeat yourself. If the command or request isn't followed through on
the first time, a quick paddling of 1 to 3 swats will get the point across.
No angry words - just quick justifiable pain. It works every time. It
works with dogs. It works with horses. It works with kids! If you don't
want to suffer pain, don't repeat the mistake. Again, no anger, no
shouting, no jerking. But you must absolutely be consistent which is where
most parents fail. If the father paddles and the mother stands by
wimpering for her son or daughter, what kind of message does that send?
Both must be consistent and on the same page every time. In the case of
schools, the principal should not do the paddling, the teacher involved
must do it. Every teacher has a paddle and must use it consistently (not
constantly). One of the problems with corporal punishment occurs when
parents are soft on their children and fight the values that teachers are
trying to impart. If both parents and the schools are on the same page,
behavior problems in the classroom and at home could be eliminated quickly.
Unfortunately, our soft society will not allow this to occur and
therefore, we WILL see the decline of effective teaching and we will see
the moral and behavioral decay of America. Therefore, everything I've
espoused in the preceding is of little value since our schools bow down to
every whim of parents and parenting continues to decline. We are on a
downward spiral that will not end until a so called "revolution"
of behavioral change comes about from the absolute lawlessness and
stupidity of the upcoming younger generations. Now, to say that all
children and students will fall into this abyss would be wrong. Parents
that care will put their children into private schools that adhere to
old-fashioned priciples. And some students will no doubt survive but will
be increasingly in the minority when it comes to acceptable behavioral
standards and values.
Jan 19, 2009 11:31 AM
Guest :
to the guest before me your mindset is all wrong sure your may think
that your children are animals but whos to say that love and understanding
wouldnt have given you the same if not better results?
Oct 15, 2009 2:11 PM
Guest :
A bit late, but to the guest who believes pain works, its a yes and no.
Every individual is different and will act accordingly. You are correct
that consistency is highly important. When there is confusion the child may
be go off breaking every rule, or get dumbed down to the point of fear of
breaking any rule that they don't do anything.
Also, even
though you see immediate results, what're the longterm effects? although
it'd be nice for it to be "this is why im doing this" and the
child accepts that, but the world doesn't work that way. And even though
logically the child can comprehend the message you're trying to give, at
the same time there are other things registering which can range from
"you beat those which you love" to "those who love me beat
me".
Look at what DARE has done. Yes, some kids won't touch
drugs because of it...but its merely out of fear."If you do ecstasy
you're going to die". Immense punishments which are ridiculous claim
which cost millions of dollars, and in the end, instead of finding out
facts about substances, kids just went on doing it. In actuality, DARE
increased the use of narcotics, alcohol, tobacco, etc. in younger ages, and
in more kids.
In conclusion: punishment stops short-term
undesirable actions. punishment COULD put a long-term stop(unless your
child has a brain and doesn't believe everything they hear and finds some
facts for themselves). But there are countless latents just waiting to
burst out that can affect the person's life for years. Heard of cases of
girls that keep getting into abusive relationships? People who once out of
jail, go right back in? Kids who are on lockdown with their parents who go
out and do drugs like crazy? Look up statistics, there's too many reliable
ones that are easy to find to bother citing any specific ones. So, if you
care about your kids long-term development, you'll take a different route
for teaching your children what's right and wrong. It's difficult, very
very difficult. But its your choice to have kids or not. If anyone
cares to reach me to discuss further, email me @ omgitsteddy@gmail.com
