Shouting Is the New Spanking

I’m writing not from the perspective of a parent (because I have no experience with my unborn child) but a daycare worker. Contrasted with a public school system which a few short decades ago allowed spanking, daycares and preschools today are paranoid about punishment. In fact, the words punishment or discipline are taboo. Even time-outs are joining the list of unacceptable behavioral modification. The only acceptable modes of correction are distraction or redirection. Understandably, daycares want to stay far away from allegations of abuse, and they are increasingly staying away (officially) from imposing any negative consequences whatsoever.

Albert Mohler inspired this post as well, with his October 23 radio program entitled “The Blessings of Discipline in a Child’s Life.” He cites a New York Times article which notes the cultural phenomenon of shouting instead of spanking. A generation who would never administer corporal punishment to their children are still a generation who yell at their children.

Dr. Mohler thinks this is because parental understanding of discipline has changed from being grounded in punishment and teaching right from wrong, to the simple equation of greater or less frustration, equaling greater or less yelling.

I think this is sad, and I have seen the fruits of it in my work settings. Teachers are substitute parents for many of the children in their care, taking care of them for as many as 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Yet they are not permitted to administer negative consequences for bad behavior (or even allowed to use the word bad). This is because they are merely paid caregivers, and do not have the trust or responsibility to wisely punish children, especially in a culture that largely views punishment as unnecessarily negative.

There is nothing but frustration in this setting. Teachers try to control six 1-year-olds or eleven 2-year-olds or fifteen 3-year-olds on their own, and positive redirection of every misbehavior becomes a near impossibility. Meanwhile, parents are gone from their children for 40+ hours a week, and the last thing they want is to deal with misbehavior on the way out the door. I’ve witnessed more than one yelling episode in the parking lot as a parent is preparing to take their child home.

Parents are afraid of their children. Children are out of their parents’ control, and they know it. Parents feel helpless to take over the situation, and guilty about administering discipline. They don’t even know how to do it in many cases. So good intentions and a feeling of helplessness become frustration and anger as the child becomes increasingly uncontrollable, and it pours out into yelling.

Children become deaf to yelling – not that it doesn’t affect them at all, but they don’t respond favorably when yelled at continually. They learn to ignore it, to tune it out like so much white noise.

Yesterday I went to the county immunization center to get the H1N1 vaccine. As I waited for my name to be called, I was sitting across from a couple with two young children -adorable kids, a boy around 5 and a girl around 3. They were trying to deal with the restless little girl who threw a fit every other minute, literally. Her dad walked around with her, took her outside numerous times, showed her videos on his cell phone, and cajoled her into happiness in every way he could think of. Meanwhile, the mom snapped at the boy because he didn’t want to sit still in the chair. She was frazzled, frustrated, and would have been yelling if it wasn’t a public place. I recognized the symptoms easily because I have felt helpless frustration with out-of-control children many times myself.

I couldn’t help mentally comparing this unhappy family with a family with young children I know in our church. They act like completely normal children in many ways. If they were waiting in the office for an hour, they wouldn’t all have been sitting still, either, and the two-year-old boy would probably have been acting just like the little girl I saw. The difference is how their parents handle the situation. They are in authority, and they know it -  but instead of its being a power trip, it helps eliminate their frustration. They’re calmer when taking a child aside to be confronted or spanked, even if  it has to be done numerous times, and eventually, their consistent discipline bears fruit as their children grow older.

What’s the difference between these two families? Simple – the gospel. The parents of the first family are symptomatic of our culture’s mindset toward childrearing. The world’s view on this would have been different fifty years ago, but no less ungodly. The only reason the second family is different is because the parents understand God’s mercy and goodness, His holy standards, and are able to enforce discipline with both grace and firmness. Without Christ’s death on the cross for sinners, there would be no hope in trying to enforce moral behavior in children, but reminded of their own forgiven status and desirous of seeing their children know the Lord, Christian parents have hope.

This isn’t to say Christian parents never become frustrated or yell at their children. I know that’s not the case. The point is that only God can give parents the strength and wisdom they need, even though it is definitely a process of sanctification for the parents and not just the children! I’m sure I’ll be able to testify to that in a few years.