Little by little, society is waking up to physical punishment towards children if we compare it with previous generations. But unfortunately, it is still a fairly well-established practice that is not entirely frowned upon depending on what cases, and that causes damage and entails both physical and psychological consequences in the little ones.
As adults, as responsible and loving parents that we aspire to be, we must know that hitting children is totally reprehensible behavior that does not lead to anything good. There are alternatives to the cheek, you can educate without hitting. We give you seven powerful reasons why you should never hit a child.
You show that you’ve lost control
As adults, it is the parents who must be in control of the situation. And by control, I do not mean to exercise authoritarianism, but to have the ability to guide the child and explain which behaviors are appropriate and which are not in each situation.
Parents are the pillars of our children, their references. By hitting them, we are showing them that we have lost control and that reference collapses, we disfigure ourselves as an authority .
I understand that many times it is difficult to maintain control, we are all parents and we have bad days. Tiredness, stress … sometimes we want to explode, but are we not able to control ourselves before raising our hands? We must exercise self-control , count to 10 (or up to 100 if necessary) before exploding like an erupting volcano, and pay for the lack of self-control with our children.
It is a bad way to resolve conflicts
What are we transmitting to children if we slap them, slap or pull their hair for behavior that we consider inappropriate? That in this way the problems are resolved.
In this way, we only prioritize violence over words as a way to resolve conflicts . If there is a problem we talk about it in a civilized way, if he has done something with which we do not agree, we explain it to him. If it is not the best time to do it, we wait until the waters calm down and then we talk. There are many options when it comes to spanking, and certainly much more educational.
Violence calls for violence
How can we tell a child that it is wrong to hit another child if we do it with them? It is a way of justifying violence , of normalizing it through incoherence and misunderstood authority. I do it with you, but you should not do it with others. How?
Children exposed to violence in the home are proven to become violent children. They see it at home and they assimilate it as something normal . Educating in non-violence is a path that begins from the day they are born, or even earlier, from the womb.
It is not an educational method
Hitting children shows us how uncreative we are as parents . The easy thing is to slap or spank, but it only solves in the moment through fear, but it does not modify the child’s behavior .
He will avoid doing it so as not to receive a spanking again, but he will not understand why he should not do that or that. The complicated, but our responsibility as parents, is to use educational resources that correct behaviors in a respectful way. Talk, dialogue, explain and not only resources before the action already carried out, but also tools that prevent bad behaviors .
Damage children’s personality
The yelling, the humiliation, and of course, hitting them leaves an indelible mark on the children’s personality . It is true, many of us have received a scourge as children and nothing has happened to us, or so we want to believe, but the marks are there. It would have been better not to receive them.
But now we are adults and we are able to face the mistakes our parents have made. Is that the model we want to follow with our children?
Abuse produces changes in the brain. I know that a spanking is not the same as a beating, but it makes us lose the line of a respectful education (where is the limit?). Violence makes them feel defenseless and humiliated and damages their self-esteem.
Nobody deserves to be beaten
Hitting is wrong, whoever it is. Because they are our children does not mean that we have permission to hit them . It does not hit your wife, your husband, your partner, your parents, or your children. They are what we love the most, right?
Just as we would not slap our partner for a bad answer, or a co-worker for something that has bothered us, why do we believe we have the power to do it with our children? Violence against women seems terrible to us, why do we justify it when it comes to children? . We are talking about defenseless children, who are also our children and we must protect and educate with love.
Because it is a crime
In addition to not being an educational method and causing physical and emotional damage to children, in short, everything that we have explained in the previous points. Hitting children is prohibited by law .
Whether it is a spanking on the ass, in the diaper, a corrective touch, or the well-known “slap in time”, hitting a child is a crime . There is a law that condemns it.
Since 2007, the Civil Code eliminated the last sentence of article 154: “[parents] may also reasonably and moderately correct their children.” For its part, article 153 of the Penal Code prohibits violent physical punishment.
Photos | iStockphoto and ellyn. on Flickr
In Babies and more | Why hugs are better than punishments to educate your children, The four “R’s”: the negative consequences that punishment generates in children
