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How To Punish Your Child Efficiently – Part II

Part I here: How To Punish Your Child Efficiently

So true is it that the efficacy of any mode of punishment consists in the certainty of its infliction, that even playful punishments are in many cases sufficient to accomplish the cure of a fault.

George, for example, was in the habit of continually getting into disputes and mild quarrels with his sister Amelia, a year or two younger than himself.

“I know it is very foolish,” he said to his mother, when she was talking with him on the subject one evening after he had gone to bed, and she had been telling him a story, and his mind was in a calm and tranquil state. “It is very foolish, but somehow I can’t help it. I forget.”

“Then you must have some punishment to make you remember,” said his mother.

“But sometimes she is the one to blame,” said George, “and then she must have the punishment.”

“No,” replied his mother. “When a lady and a gentleman become involved in a dispute in polite society, it is always the gentleman that must be considered to be to blame.”

“But Amelia and I are not polite society,” said George.

“You ought to be,” said his mother. “At any rate, when you, an older brother, get into disputes with your sister, it is because you have not sense enough to manage so as to avoid them. If you were a little older and wiser you would have sense enough.”

“Well, mother, what shall the punishment be?” said George.

“Would you really like to have a punishment, so as to cure yourself of the fault?” asked his mother.

George said that he would like one.

“Then,” said his mother, “I propose that every time you get into a dispute with Amelia, you turn your jacket wrong side out, and wear it so a little while as a symbol of folly.”

George laughed heartily at this idea, and said he should like such a punishment as that very much. It would only be fun, he said. His mother explained to him that it would be fun, perhaps, two or three times, but after that it would only be a trouble; but still, if they decided upon that as a punishment, he must submit to it in every case.

Every time he found himself getting into any dispute or difficulty with his sister, he must stop at once and turn his jacket inside out; and if he did not himself think to do this, she herself, if she was within hearing, would simply say, “Jacket!” and then he must do it.

“No matter which of us is most to blame?” asked George.

“You will always be the one that is most to blame,” replied his mother, “or, at least, almost always. When a boy is playing with a sister younger than himself, he is the one that is most to blame for the quarrelling. His sister may be to blame by doing something wrong in the first instance; but he is the one to blame for allowing it to lead to a quarrel.

If it is a little thing, he ought to yield to her, and not to mind it; and if it is a great thing, he ought to go away and leave her, rather than to stop and quarrel about it. So you see you will be the one to blame for the quarrel in almost all cases.

There may possibly be some cases where you will not be to blame at all, and then you will have to be punished when you don’t deserve it, and you must bear it like a man. This is a liability that happens under all systems.”

“We will try the plan for one fortnight,” she continued. “So now remember, every single time that I hear you disputing or quarrelling with Amelia, you must take off your jacket and put it on again wrong side out – no matter whether you think you were to blame or not – and wear it so a few minutes.

You can wear it so for a longer or shorter time, just as you think is best to make the punishment effectual in curing you of the fault. By the end of the fortnight we shall be able to see whether the plan is working well and doing any good.”

“So now,” continued his mother, “shut up your eyes and go to sleep. You are a good boy to wish to cure yourself of such faults, and to be willing to help me in contriving ways to do it. And I have no doubt that you will submit to this punishment good-naturally every time, and not make me any trouble about it.”

Let it be remembered, now, that the efficacy of such management as this consists not in the devising of it, nor in holding such a conversation as the above with the boy – salutary as this might be – but in the faithfulness and strictness with which it is followed up during the fortnight of trial.

In the case in question, the progress which George made in diminishing his tendency to get into disputes with his sister was so great that his mother told him, at the end of the first fortnight, that their plan had succeeded “admirably” – so much so, she said, that she thought the punishment of taking off his jacket and turning it inside out would be for the future unnecessarily severe, and she proposed to substitute for it taking off his cap, and putting it on wrong side before.

The reader will, of course, understand that the object of such an illustration as this is not to recommend the particular measure here described for adoption in other cases, but to illustrate the spirit and temper of mind in which all measures adopted by the mother in the training of her children should be carried into effect.

Measures that involve no threats, no scolding, no angry manifestations of displeasure, but are even playful in their character, may be very efficient in action if they are firmly and perseveringly maintained.

There is great advantage in adapting the character of the punishment to that of the fault – making it, as far as possible, the natural and proper consequence of it.

For instance, if the boys of a school do not come in promptly at the close of the twenty minutes’ recess, but waste five minutes by their dilatoriness in obeying the summons of the bell, and the teacher keeps them for five minutes beyond the usual hour of dismissal, to make up for the lost time, the punishment may be felt by them to be deserved, and it may have a good effect in diminishing the evil it is intended to remedy.

But it will probably excite a considerable degree of mental irritation, if not of resentment, on the part of the children, which will diminish the good effect, or is, at any rate, an evil which is to be avoided if possible.

If now, on the other hand, he assigns precisely the same penalty in another form, the whole of the good effect may be secured without the evil. Suppose he addresses the boys just before they are to go out at the next recess, as follows:

“I think, boys, that twenty minutes is about the right length of time for the recess, all told – that is, from the time you go out to the time when you are all back in your seats again, quiet and ready to resume your studies.

I found yesterday that it took five minutes for you all to come in – that is, that it was five minutes from the time the bell was rung before all were in their seats; and to-day I shall ring the bell after fifteen minutes, so as to give you time to come in. If I find to-day that it takes ten minutes, then I will give you more time to come in to-morrow, by ringing the bell after you have been out ten minutes.”

“I am sorry to have you lose so much of your recess, and if you can make the time for coming in shorter, then, of course, your recess can be longer.

I should not wonder if, after a few trials, you should find that you could all come in and get into your places in one minute; and if so, I shall be very glad, for then you can have an uninterrupted recess of nineteen minutes, which will be a great gain.”

Every one who has had any considerable experience in the management of boys will readily understand how different the effect of this measure will be from that of the other, while yet the penalty is in both cases precisely the same – namely, the loss, for the boys, of five minutes of their play.

The Little Runaway.

In the same manner, where a child three or four years old was in the habit, when allowed to go out by himself in the yard to play, of running off into the street, a very appropriate punishment would be to require him, for the remainder of the day, to stay in the house and keep in sight of his mother, on the ground that it was not safe to trust him by himself in the yard.

This would be much better than sending him to bed an hour earlier, or subjecting him to any other inconvenience or privation having no obvious connection with the fault. For it is of the greatest importance to avoid, by every means, the exciting of feelings of irritation and resentment in the mind of the child, so far as it is possible to do this without impairing the efficiency of the punishment.

It is not always possible to do this. The efficiency of the punishment is, of course, the essential thing; but parents and teachers who turn their attention to the point will find that it is much less difficult than one would suppose to secure this end completely without producing the too frequent accompaniments of punishment – anger, ill-temper, and ill-will.

In the case, for example, of the child not allowed to go out into the yard, but required to remain in the house in sight of his mother, the mother should not try to make the punishment more heavy by speaking again and again of his fault, and evincing her displeasure by trying to make the confinement as irksome to the child as possible; but, on the other hand, should do all in her power to alleviate it.

“I am very sorry,” she might say, “to have to keep you in the house. It would be much pleasanter for you to go out and play in the yard, if it was only safe. I don’t blame you very much for running away. It is what foolish little children, as little as you, very often do. I suppose you thought it would be good fun to run out a little way in the street.

And it is good fun; but it is not safe. By-and-by, when you grow a little larger, you won’t be so foolish, and then I can trust you in the yard at any time without having to watch you at all. And now what can I get for you to amuse you while you stay in the house with me?”

Punishment coming in this way, and administered in this spirit, will irritate the mind and injure the temper comparatively little; and, instead of being less; will be much more effective in accomplishing the right kind of cure for the fault, than any stern, severe, and vindictive retribution can possibly be.

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