Photo by Sergio Roberto Bichara

Then you hear the mother furiously whispering to her child, “Hold on! Stay still! Be patient! Stop it!” and other things along those lines. You’re not sure what is going on there — perhaps the child is resisting a diaper change; perhaps the child is running wild around the stall. You are not exactly sure how old the child is, but he is not very verbal. At any rate it is clear the mother is getting more and more frustrated. Suddenly, you hear a loud *SMACK* followed by crying and then whimpering from the child. Obviously the child has been spanked.

What would you do? I believe in gentle discipline and positive discipline in line with the thinking that “discipline” means to teach, not to punish. Spanking is corporal punishment and if anything, it “teaches” the child that hitting is acceptable and that he should obey his mother out of fear. So I am not really interested in hearing how you spank your children and think it’s totally fine, or you spank your children but wouldn’t do it in public (you are entitled to your opinion of course, but I whole-heartedly disagree with such an opinion and I don’t think parents should be entitled to spank their children anytime, anywhere). What I would like to hear is, assuming you also would be distressed by the sound of a child being hit in anger (or hit at all for that matter), what would you do? Would you intervene? Say something or do something? Stay to check on the child? Think about what you would do in that situation and then read on to find out what I did.

What I did: I was so shocked to hear that spanking and the child’s crying that I blurted out, “No! Oh no! I don’t want to hear that!” I spoke before I thought, and I conveyed my disapproval of the spanking quite clearly. The mother stayed silent while the child whimpered. My older girls were upset and asked me what was going on. I told them that the mother had spanked her child and that hitting a child is wrong, just as hitting anyone is wrong. The mother continued to stay silent, and I quickly ushered my girls out of the restroom after we washed our hands. In such cases where a parent is upset in public and is treating a child harshly, I have often wondered whether intervening actually makes the situation worse and whether the parent will then blame the child for drawing attention to them both and embarrassing the parent. So I left it at what I had said and did not try to intervene further. The whole thing has bothered me ever since.

Please leave a comment to share what you would have done in that situation.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

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2. How to Get Good Medical Advice on Breastfeeding — it’s not as easy as it sounds, or as one would hope, to get accurate and current information on breastfeeding. This post contains information I would love to pass on to every prospective and new mother!

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4. Why Sleep Training Makes Me Want to Cry — This post generated a lot of controversy. People either strongly oppose or staunchly defend “crying-it-out.”

5. Gentle Discipline — I hope this essay validates the use of attachment parenting and gentle discipline.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3