English Research/Argument Essay

University of Minnesota Press

Chapter Title: DISCIPLINE Chapter Author(s): Smiley Blanton

Book Title: Parent Education Book Subtitle: The Northwest Conference on Child Health and Parent Education Book Editor(s): RICHARD OLDING BEARD Published by: University of Minnesota Press. (1927) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.cttttn22.15

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XI. DISCIPLINE

SMILEY BLANTON, M.D. Director, Minneapolis Child Guidance Clinic

Professor-elect of Child Study, Vassar College

Theologians tell us that man was born in sin. Whether or not we accept this, it certainly is true that the infant is full of impulses which must be modified and directed if he is to become a healthy and successful adult. It is only when parents thoroughly understand the laws of discipline that they are able successfully to lead the child through the difficult period of childhood and adolescence. Disci- pline is often thought of as punishment. Punishment is sometimes necessary, of course, in order to break up un- wise habits; but the most important function of discipline is not to break up bad habits but to help the child to form correct habits in the first place. This is the constructive side of discipline, and this side should always be kept in mind as the most important function of discipline.

During the first years of life, the child is laying down patterns of behavior which will serve as models throughout his entire life. It is for this reason that correct discipline is so important during these early years. In the training of children there are certain fundamental principles which the parents should keep in mind. First, the child's actions are caused by something. This may seem a statement of an obvious fact, and yet it is very often overlooked. If a child has temper-tantrums or cries easily or takes things not belonging to him or tells falsehoods, the cause must be found before a remedy can be found. If we think of the act itself without penetrating to the cause beneath, we are not likely to be able to apply the correct training necessary

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114 PARENT EDUCATION

to modify the act. So parents are urged to consider the child's behavior as a symptom of some underlying cause and in cases of misbehavior not to act until they have found out the cause for the child's acts. For example, anger is caused by thwarting of some kind. Often children are thwarted when they are carrying out perfectly natural and healthy activities. The following is an example of a temper-tantrum caused by unwise thwarting:

A mother recently said to me, "John had a temper- tantrum today, and I had to whip him and put him to bed." It turned out that John, who was three years old, had been playing in the kitchen, and he was handling the dishes piled in the china-closet, which reached down to the floor. The mother told him twice not to do this, but he continued; so she whipped him, and he had a temper- tantrum. An intelligent child of three is naturally going to handle things that he sees in front of him. It was per- fectly normal for this child to want to handle the pretty dishes which he saw. If the mother wished him not to do this, either she should have shut the china-closet door, so that he could not get at the dishes, and engaged his attention with some other activity, or she should have put him in another room. When she whipped him for handling the dishes, she was thwarting him in an unjustifiable way.

An example of how a temper-tantrum might be handled was given me by Miss Gertrude Work, a teacher in the St. Paul Public Schools. "Francis, a very small, intelli- gent child of six years, had cooperated for a month in every way and had endeared himself to all. One day the class was busily engaged in a reading project that de- manded attention and silence. Francis left his place and I shook my head to avoid disturbing the class and he re- turned to his place. He waited for a minute and then

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DISCIPLINE 115

left again and I repeated the refusal in the same way. After a minute he left again and, being denied permission, with a rage that was almost unbelievable said, 'I will get my handkerchief.'

"I went toward him to quiet him and he beat his arms wildly in the air and also at me. I took him on my lap and said, 'You may have your handkerchief just as soon as you are quiet.' He cuddled up close and between sobs said very slowly, 'I want my handkerchief.' One child asked if he was having a fit and I answered, 'No.' By this time the rage and sobs had disappeared, so I told him to go into the cloakroom and get his handkerchief. It was dismissal time, so I asked him to remain. He sat on my lap and was very quiet.

"I explained that I would gladly have allowed him to get his handkerchief, had I only known what it was he wanted. It would have been much better to say, 'May I get my handkerchief?' when he stood up instead of, 'I will get my handkerchief.' I also asked him if he knew why I didn't want him to leave at that minute and he said, 'It was a quiet game and I would have bothered Stanley.'

"It was a very clear-cut example of a child having a temper-tantrum because he was thwarted and his rights were invaded, in this case the right to get and use one's handkerchief. He has not had another temper-tantrum, for, as the old proverb says, 'To understand is to forgive/ and one might add, 'To understand is to avoid trouble.' "

The second principle to which I wish to call parents' attention can be stated as follows: Always keep the experi- mental attitude. Parents sometimes continue to use the same methods of discipline for months and even years without getting any results whatever. If a child is doing

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116 PARENT EDUCATION

something that is undesirable and a certain type of disci- pline is used and does not get results, parents should sit down and see if the thing that the child is doing is really undesirable and, if so, try another type of discipline. The following case of a so-called "bad" boy will illustrate what I mean. This boy would charge things at the store with- out his mother's permission; he would not come in from his play on time; he fought with his brother almost con- stantly; he would rifle the mail-boxes in the neighborhood apartment houses. The mother said he began to be a problem at two years of age when she began to whip him, and she continued to whip him about once a week. "He is ten years old and just as bad now," she said, "as he ever was. In fact, I think he is getting worse." I asked her if she thought it was very intelligent to keep on whipping the boy when she had tried this for eight years without results. She said, "Well, no; but what else can I do?" After a careful study of the boy's intelligence, his physical condition, and his personality, we were able to suggest methods of discipline which resulted after a time in a well- behaved boy.

The third principle: Do not ask the child to attempt things that are beyond his physical and psychological possibilities. I was in a bank some time ago when a mother with a two-year-old baby came in. She put the baby down on the seat and went to the desk to attend to some business. In a minute or so the child crawled from the seat and began to toddle about. The mother roughly came back and rather harshly sat him down on the seat and said, "You stay there and be quiet." She returned to her work, and in a few minutes the child had crawled down again and begun to play with a dog that was in the room. The mother was apparently afraid the child was going to be

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hurt; she picked him up, slapped him twice, and put him on the seat again. A two-year-old child is too young to sit still. It is against his nature; and the treatment that the mother was giving this child would only serve to make him negative, moody, and bad-tempered.

In the psychological field parents often expect children to show capacity which is far beyond their years. They sometimes expect complete truthfulness, honesty, and in- dustry in the young child of four or five years. If children are to be well trained, it is essential that they be not asked to do more than can be reasonably expected of them.

The fourth principle: In training, consider not only the immediate situation, but the relation of this situation to the child's whole life program. It is not infrequent to see children of good intelligence nagged because they do not get good grades at school. The nagging sometimes results in the child's getting fairly good grades, but often the end result is that the child gets a marked dislike for school and hates to study. It would be much better, in some cases, to overlook the poor marks for a time until the child can be remotivated so as to have a real love of school and study; then the marks will naturally improve.

Let me illustrate how easily and naturally a wrong deed may be punished on its own plane and the child bene- fited thereby, learning a great lesson without any feeling of resentment toward anyone, by quoting an example given me by Miss Esther V. Lennon, teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools. "One morning we had a box of sticks on the kindergarten table. A restless, nervous little girl sat beside it and in a moment or two put her hand into the box. As it was near the edge of the table, I cautioned her con- cerning it. Soon the little hand went in again; the box

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118 PARENT EDUCATION

tilted, slipped, and fell to the floor, while the sticks scat- tered in a hundred different directions. The child looked up in a startled manner as if fearing reproof. 'What a time our little girl will have picking up her sticks!' I said, in a matter-of-course tone. 'But I think you can get through in time for the play circle. Alvin, please move your chair so that she can get the sticks which are under it.' In a moment, the child was on her knees, rapidly picking up the scattered sticks, without a word of objec- tion or a murmur of discontent. Had I censured her, or imposed some arbitrary punishment upon her, I should, in all probability, have created a spirit of rebellion and have alienated her from me, as she was a capricious and somewhat self-willed child. As it was, she had upset the box and, as a consequence, she must pick up the sticks. I have rarely failed in leading a child to see the justice of such commands. In fact, in a short time, they usually take upon themselves the rectifying of the mistake or misdeed as best they can."

The fifth principle: Whenever possible, let the punish- ment arise naturally out of the results of the child's act. The example just given is a good illustration of this principle. If a child does not pick up his toys, it is a good thing to let them be lost or be broken. Then when the child complains- about the loss of his toys, the parent can say, "Well, that's not my fault. That's just what happens when you leave your toys on the floor."

The two fundamental methods of discipline are rewards and punishments. Every human being works for some kind of reward. It may be the reward of other people's approval or it may be the reward of our own approval—a feeling of work well done. This, of course, is the highest type of reward for which we can work, and it is the ideal

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DISCIPLINE 119

toward which we should strive. In rewarding children it must be remembered that they can not look very far ahead. I recently heard a mother say to a little boy of seven, when she gave him his weekly allowance, "Now, Tom, you must save some of your weekly allowance. Put it in the bank, and it will grow into dollars and then the bank will give you four cents each year for every dollar that you put in." It was, of course, absurd to think that this would appeal to the child as any kind of a reward. It is rather rare for adults to look far enough ahead to put their money in the savings bank because they are going to get four cents for every dollar each year; and, of course, for a seven- year-old child such a reward is meaningless. The reward of children must be immediate.

A mother said to a fourteen-year-old daughter, "Now, if you do well in your work this spring, I'm going to get you a nice new plaid dress like you wanted." Mary worked the very best she could for about six weeks or two months. She expected, during the latter part of the time, that the dress would be forthcoming, but her mother gave no sign. Mary grew disappointed. Her disappointment turned to irritation and anger. One day at the supper table her mother mentioned something about letting her go out to camp that summer if she continued to improve. Mary broke forth into a rather angry tirade, telling the mother that she had promised to give her a dress and that she hadn't kept her word. The mother was hurt and angry and sent the child to her room. For about a week she scolded Mary about her loss of temper. Mary said, in talking over the matter, "It seemed to me that the dress was a mighty long time coming." The mother said, "Of course I expected to give Mary the dress, but I thought I would wait for summer, which was about three months

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off, until I could see if she really was going to do well in school." This is just another of those pathetic ex- amples where the adult does not understand the child's thoughts and feelings. Mary wanted the dress to wear to school during the spring; she did her best for two months, hoping to get the dress. The mother put off the reward for too long a time.

Another example is that of a father and his little boy of six, who was not obeying as he should. The father, who was a traveling man, said, "Now, if you are a good boy, I'll bring you a fire-engine when I come back from my trip." The father came back after a trip of two weeks, and John showed his father a chart on which he had an almost perfect record. The father said, "That's fine! Now if you keep this up I'll get you the fire-engine." The result was that the child completely slumped. When the father came back two weeks later he found that John had the worst record he ever had. The father did not realize that a child of six cannot look forward weeks and months for his reward.

Punishment of some kind seems to be necessary in the training of all children. By punishment we do not neces- sarily mean whipping. Punishment may be of three kinds, acute physical pain, acute psychological pain, and pro- longed psychological pain. Children were whipped much oftener and more severely in the past than they are at present. From the facts that I have gathered, from more than one hundred intelligent parents, it seems that corporal punishment is still necessary in the training of children. I believe, however, that corporal punishment is used much too frequently. If it could be cut down at least 90 per cent, better results would be obtained. Many people seem to feel that if corporal punishment is not used frequently

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DISCIPLINE 121

the children are not being trained properly. There is not a parent in this audience who would use a mustard plaster on a child without having found out how it should be made, how long it should be left on the skin, and what should be done if a blister is raised; and yet most parents will whip the child without finding out the best methods of giving corporal punishment, on what part of the body to strike the child, and what results may be expected from a whipping.

In whipping children, the following facts should be borne in mind: In nine cases out of ten whippings can be avoided by substituting some other type of punishment. Corporal punishment is most effective in the earlier years, from two to five years. It should be given for the purpose of forming a conditioned response in the child so that he may avoid doing the act for which he is punished. For example, if a child reaches for something that is dangerous, two or three sharp slaps on the hand will form a condi- tioned response in the child so that he will avoid repeating the act. When children are whipped they should be whipped only on the legs or on the shoulders. Whipping on the buttocks should be avoided. The buttocks are an erogenous zone, and whipping on the buttocks may give rise to precocious sexual feelings. Rousseau, in his auto- biography, tells of early sex feelings aroused by being whipped.

Corporal punishment is usually quite futile and inade- quate after the child is six years of age. The following example is an indication of a certain attitude that is still held by some parents. John's mother was making jelly. The jelly glasses were standing in the yard on a plank resting on a trestle. John kept running up and knocking against the plank and on several occasions he almost

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knocked the jelly over onto the ground. The yard was large and the child had ample room to play elsewhere. Finally, he ran up against the trestle so hard that one of the jelly glasses was knocked on the ground. His mother took a little switch and gave him three or four blows on the legs. That night when his father came home, John said, "Mother gave me a whipping today." "What did she whip you for?" asked the father. "Because I ran up against the plank and knocked off a jelly glass." "Well," said the father, "whenever your mother whips you, I'm going to give you a whipping, too." So he went out, got a switch, and gave John another whipping. Such acts are not uncommon. It may be asked, on what basis did the father punish the child the second time? It was just a stupid, futile, and thoughtless act. If we used less tradi- tion and more common-sense in punishing children, we should get better results.

Another example of this type of unwise and thoughtless method of whipping is that of a woman who said, "I whip my boy because he gets into fights." I said to her, "Did you ever find out why he gets into fights?" She said, "No, I just whip him because he gets into fights."

An example given me by Miss Esther Lennon illus- trates this principle very well. "A young mother whose five-year-old son was in my kindergarten had heard me talk against corporal punishment for young children. One day she came to my kindergarten, dropped into our visi- tor's chair, looked defiantly up into my face, saying, 'I gave Charlie a good, sound whipping last night and it did both him and me good, and I came down here this morning to tell you of it.' Her tone of voice gave me a key to the situation. I said quietly, 'Is it possible ? Tell me about it.'

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DISCIPLINE 123

" 'I had to take him down town yesterday afternoon to have some shoes fitted to him,' she replied, 'and as I had a lot of other shopping to attend to, we were both very tired when we reached home. As soon as he had had his supper I told the maid to take him upstairs and put him to bed. He refused to go, as I ordinarily undress him myself. I insisted and he continued to refuse and behaved very badly. I saw there was no use arguing with him, so I gave him a good, sound spanking and he went without any further trouble.'

"I waited a moment and then said, 'You were very tired, I suppose, which made it hard for you to have him annoy you in this way.'

" 'Yes,' she answered. 'I was aching all over.' " 'I don't suppose he was tired at all?' I answered.

She looked a little surprised at my question. 'Why, yes,' she said, 'he was as tired or more so than I was.'

" 'Oh,' I replied, 'I see. You expected him to show more self-control than you were able to show.'

"Her face crimsoned and, half laughing, half crying, she arose and said, 'I see what you mean. I'll try never to do it again.' "

Another example is that of a mother, who said, "I whipped my boy, five years old, because he threw a stone and broke the glass in my neighbor's automobile and it cost us $20 to replace the glass." I said to her, "Did the boy mean to throw the stone at the automobile?" She said, "I don't think so; but the window cost $20." I said, "Suppose the window cost $500. What has that got to do with it? It is not wise to whip him for something he doesn't mean to do." The mother said, "Well, it would make anybody irritable when a neighbor makes you pay

for a window that your boy has broken."

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Acute psychological pain is caused when the child is deprived of something he wants very much, or when he is scolded. Examples of this type of punishment are putting the child to bed for an hour or so, or not allowing him to go playing with the other children for part of the afternoon. This is the most effective type of punishment and one that should be used most often. Parents must be careful, however, not to punish for too many things or too frequently. Any child who is scolded a half-dozen times a day soon becomes either resentful, antagonistic, or indifferent. A good example is that of a boy, ten years old, who does poor school work, although he has good intelligence. He is indifferent, antagonistic, and quite disobedient. He is an only child and the parents are too strict. They have expected this child to live up to a stand- ard which is too difficult for any child to live up to. If he does not get home exactly on time, he is scolded; if he slams the doors at home, he is scolded; if he gets poor marks at school, he is scolded. As a result of this treat- ment the boy has gotten so that he does not respond to any commands or entreaties. He has had to develop in- difference to commands in order that he might live at all.

When parents nag and scold a child for several days about some misdemeanor, they are guilty of prolonged psychological punishment. This type of punishment is destructive of all good discipline. The mother who prom- ised the girl a dress, but waited too long to give it to her would frequently scold her daughter about a week for some misdemeanor. After the daughter had gotten angry at the mother about the dress, the mother continued to scold her about it for a week. When I spoke about the mother, the girl said to me, with tears in her eyes, "Mama kept on after me about this for such a long time. I don't

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see how she is going to make me better by keeping on scolding me forever and ever about the same thing." The girl, because of the prolonged psychological punishment to which she was subjected, was becoming negative and antagonistic toward her mother.

Perhaps I can bring this matter home to you all by the following illustration. Let us suppose that you are doing your spring house-cleaning and you accidentally break your husband's pet golf club. You are very much dis- tressed and when he comes home in the evening, you tell him of the accident and how sorry you are that it occurred. He replies in a mournful tone, "Oh, well, that's all right. It doesn't make any difference. Of course, I can't get the club replaced, because Simpson, the man who makes them, is in Scotland for the year. But I can give up playing golf." The next afternoon instead of playing golf, your husband comes home with a mournful face and you say, "Aren't you going to play golf?" and your husband says, "Oh, no; I can't play good without my old driver. I think I'll just fool around in the garden here at the house." This continues for several days, the husband carrying with him an injured air and looking as though he were very much put upon. At first you are very deeply distressed. You may even have a good cry over the matter. At the end of the week, however, because of this behavior, you are somewhat irritated. By the end of two weeks the feeling of irritation has changed into rage. Instead of being sorry you broke the club, you are glad you did it.

What is true for you, as wives and mothers, is cer- tainly true for your children. If you continue to nag and scold them about some misdemeanor, they soon cease to be sorry and become either indifferent or antagonistic. When it is necessary to punish the child for something,

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let the punishment be short, sharp, and decisive. When the punishment is over, say no more about it. Let by- gones be by-gones and let the dead bury the dead.

Both the mother and the father should share equally in the discipline and training of the children. It sometimes happens that the father is away from home much of the time, and it is impossible for him to share equally with the mother; but where the father is in the home he should share with the mother in this training and disciplining of the children. Both girls and boys need the influence of the father. It is very often said that the adolescent boy needs the father, whereas the adolescent girl needs the mother. This is true, but it is equally true that the adolescent girl needs the companionship and interest of her father just as much as that of her mother.

The custom of saving up the punishment until the father comes home to administer it is certainly to be avoided. Some years ago it was quite common for the mother to say, "Now, children, if you don't behave your- selves, I'll tell your father when he gets home and he will punish you." Under this form of discipline the father is merely a hard task-master, to administer punishment, when instead he should be a kindly counselor.

Discipline, in order to be effective, must be consistent. If one parent is too harsh, the other parent is likely to be too easy. Autocratic fathers are not uncommon, whose ideas of discipline are that the children should obey im- mediately and implicitly every command given. If the children do not give this type of obedience, they are pun- ished very severely. In such homes we find the mother protecting the children from the father's harsh discipline. It is in such homes that the greatest number of behavior difficulties are found.

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