Today I read a thought-provoking article called The Viral Popularity of Child Abuse, which looked at the various dysfunctional and dastardly (if increasingly inventive) methods of 'discipline' employed by parents these days, many of which are vaunted on social media as admirable examples of 'progressive parenting'. In every case, 'discipline' is merely the execution of good old-fashioned punishment. The article led to the grim but irrefutable conclusion that: "The world will continue to be a broken place if we continue to break our kids."
I disagree, however, about authoritarianism being at an all-time high - what's happened is that boundaries have become increasingly blurred, and people generally have become desensitised, detached, conceited and cripplingly insecure. (These things are interestingly the basis for NPD, which might go some way to explaining why NPD now seems to be almost an epidemic in modern society.)
So many people, even including those who are not narcissists, are preoccupied with how other people see them, constantly seeking approval and validation from both friends and total strangers when their priority should be raising happy, healthy, confident kids on their own terms. (This in turn can only realistically be achieved if the parent is reasonably happy, healthy and confident.) Parenthood is hard, it's really, really fucking hard, and women in particular turn against each other as mothers rather than raising their children together as a cooperative community (remember the phrase, "it takes a village to raise a child"?), and supporting each other with honesty and compassion and reciprocal respect.
It's become a point of rivalry; of conflict, tension and snide, arbitrary one-upmanships which boil down to a fearsome, confusing, goalpost-shifting, back-stabbing, shit-eating and entirely pointless 'competition'. And it's ALWAYS the children who suffer, because they are only ever allowed to be defined in terms of how their behaviour (including their mistakes, misfortunes and achievements) reflect on their parent.
My mother's concept of discipline was somewhat skewed, in fact to use the technical term it was fucked, and her punishments were as disproportionate as they were random. I certainly suffered for it. All her daughters suffered immeasurably from her conspicuous lack of even the most rudimentary mothering ability. Her very presence made me feel uncomfortable at best, terrified at worst.
But discipline is so important, and getting it right is one of the biggest challenges of parenthood. One accepted definition of discipline is: control that is gained by requiring that rules or orders be obeyed and punishing bad behavior.
And there's that dirty word 'control' again. Nobody wants a child who is 'out of control', but equally, do we really want 'controlled' children? What kind of parent wants a child who lives in fear of them? Answer: the kind of parent who doesn't differentiate between fear and respect.
Rewarding good behaviour (positive reinforcement) is at least as important as punishing bad behaviour, and consistency is key. A major function of discipline is teaching children to take responsibility for their behaviour, and to observe acceptable and appropriate boundaries. Parents who see discipline as a way of wielding power over their children and instilling fear in them will not succeed in creating well-adjusted citizens. According to Glynis Sherwood, "Families that are shame or fear based are not healthy. Often in these families you will find evidence of abuse, neglect, addiction, betrayal, mental illness and insecurity." (I will refer to this excellent article again in a later post, as it is primarily focused on the narcissistic parent's poisonous tactic of "scapegoating those who want to understand and change negative dynamics" within a toxic family, and as a family scapegoat myself, her words resonate strongly with me.)
In terms of discipline, as long as a parent maintains the consistent tacit message that they LOVE their child unconditionally, nobody should interfere with how they choose to discipline their child. Every family should be based on a foundation of unconditional love. Unconditional love means NEVER humiliating/shaming, hitting (to intentionally hurt), insulting or demeaning your child, so if a parent does any of those things and calls it discipline, they are indeed 'broken' and need fixing themselves.
Side note: I know plenty of good parents who smack their children and there IS a difference between a single, brief smack to the bottom or leg (as a last resort), and actual physical abuse of a child. My dad smacked me once or twice and it sorted my behaviour out immediately, because he was not a violent man and I knew the smack was not intended to hurt or humiliate me but as a way of signalling: that's quite enough of your shittiness, young lady. My mother actually beat me up; smacks, slaps and even occasional punches, often hard enough to cause bruises, and I never even knew what I'd done to deserve it. (Of course, no child EVER 'deserves' it.) But as this 'Revolutionary Parent' article touches on, as appalling and unforgivable as it is, physical abuse can be the least damaging form of child abuse, even though the effects of it tend to be the most outwardly obvious. Bruises at least fade in time.
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