Do you spare the rod in bringing up your child? Perhaps you believe in the positive (read softer) approach.
Whatever method you adopt, a good mix of patience, common sense and a sensitive appreciation of child psychology is needed by today's parents. Even if much of the time, children are left with other child minders, parents have the final say from the child's perspective.
Dr Ong Say How, a consultant child psychiatrist and deputy chief, Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the Singapore Institute of Mental Health sums up (Doc Talk, MYB Nov 13, 2008) the professional view that caning is not encouraged precisely because it is frequently administered when the parent is angry, a state of mind that is not conducive to good judgment or objective assessment of the issue(s) involved.
But we tend to agree that sometimes we ourselves do need a swift kick to the behind to get us on the right course, and so it is with children. In exceptional instances, the cane used in a judicious fashion can produce the right and lasting outcome. Mine was in Primary 4! I have never looked back since :)
Barring such special instances, it is advisable to resist the temptation to do bodily damage, which indeed is what caning is, to put it plainly.
Especially to young children whose minds are in an accelerated learning stage, and look to their loving parents and other caring adults to provide the just parameters for proper behaviour and response as they grow up.
In our busy and stressful society largely due to the highly urbanised setting, we adults tend to forget that and resort to violence (er, the cane). Hardly the kind of life lesson to imprint on impressionable minds.
See elsewhere on this site for more information in this area of child discipline and more:
