Inflicting bodily pain on children is not discipline. Growing up, it was common to see and hear children shouting and writhing in pain when their parents and guardians are punishing them.
From beating children with cane, koboko, wires and belts to putting peppers in their eyes and private parts. The pleas, screams and pains of these children meant nothing to these parents who were bent on inflicting bodily pains on their erring children.
I remember one young girl who was brought to live with our neighbor and his wife in the early 90s. She was this restless, active and playful small girl. Whenever this girl did something wrong, her aunty would grind pepper and put in her eyes and vagina.
One day, she stopped to give a small boy directions to another street and her aunt claimed she wanted to start having sex with small boys in the area. She put pepper in her vagina to stop her from becoming promiscuous. Gosh, such wickedness!
Is that how to raise a child? Is that how to prevent a child from becoming promiscuous? What if the child develops lifelong complications from having pepper in their eyes and vagina all the time? What if the child suddenly drops dead from receiving beatings and punishment all the time, what will they do?
Some parents use new razor blades to cut their erring children’s bodies. They claimed they were doing it so that these children won’t become spoilt brats. They didn’t know they were raising hardened adults who won’t have qualms inflicting the same pain on other people.
Nigerian parents should stop meting out wickedness on their children disguised as discipline and punishment. They are causing their children pain. These parents don’t know how much harm they are causing their children.
Parents need to know how to punish a child for bad behaviour without being mean and heartless about it. Some punishments for kids in this part of the world are laced with anger.
It doesn’t matter if one parent does not discipline their child the way others deem fit, what matters is how you treat your kid even if they are wrong. How should parents discipline their child?
Here are wrongs ways to discipline children:
Bad discipline meaning is getting angry and yelling at your child all the time. Yelling and shouting will make your child start reacting instead of listening to what you are saying. This is one of the worst ways to discipline your child.
Parents, stop threatening your children. It has a way of backfiring. Threatening your child is useless because you are not actually teaching them anything about behaving better. They just learn to tolerate your threats and keep on doing what they want.
Beating your child and inflicting bodily harm on him or her is not how to scold a child a child for bad behaviour. Talk and explain things to your child calmly. This doesn’t mean you won’t discipline your child when he or she is wrong but you have to do that without being heartless about it.
