During a walk in the park on a gorgeous Friday morning, the conversation with my friend turned to the usual topic: “how do we deal with our kids’ misbehaviors??” (This is second only to the most common park discussion: “where should I send my kid to school?!” and followed up by a close third: “what should I do with my kids during vacation!?”).
My friend mentioned that she had been reading a book advocating punishment for kids’ infractions, and I remembered hearing a podcast with that same author, where she mentioned that she had docked her daughter (with severe ADHD) 15 minutes at an amusement park for fighting in the car. I’m sure this author has much research to back her up, and she is a self-proclaimed expert on ADHD (having parented and taught many children with ADHD symptoms). But my research (and personal experience parenting and teaching kids with many different personalities) has brought me to a different conclusion. It has shown me that punishment is, at worst, harmful for a child, and at best, doesn’t really work.
Before I tackle the scholarly research, I want to point that the true Torah approach is actually very much in line with the current research in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and child development. Without the space to fully tackle this here, I’ll just mention that Rav Volbe already pointed out that the quotes in Mishlei about punishing children do not have to be taken literally in every generation (it is a book of parables after all!), and that a “staff” can be used to refer to a stick for hitting but can also be any ko’ach that is prodding something to produce growth. And if we think about what “onesh” is as defined by Chazal and Rishonim such as the Rambam, we see that the “onesh” of the Torah is not at all comparable to the “punishment” of the behavioral school of B.F. Skinner in the 1950s. To put it simply, schar and onesh are really internal states of a person’s mind. Schar is achieved by a person working on themselves to achieve their potential, and the pleasurable feeling that a person feels when he has reached that state, which is his connection to his true self and Hashem. Onesh is the lack of that feeling, and it occurs when a person does not achieve that state; it is described by Chazal as a feeling of shame at not having achieved who they are supposed to be and being disconnected from their true self and Hashem.
Schar and Onesh are achieved by the person themselves, internally; they are not outwardly imposed arbitrarily by Hashem to try to make us suffer from our bad choices, or mold us to do what He wants us to do. Yes, there are sometimes positive and negative consequences for our actions in this world, and our children sometimes benefit from seeing these consequences. But our goal for our children, as models of Hashem, would be for them to ultimately experience pleasure in their connection to us and in doing the right thing because it feels good inside, and for them to feel some type of emotional pain or disappointment when they make a mistake that disconnects them from us or from who they really are. But external punishments don’t necessarily seem to be the way to go.
But what is wrong with punishments? Even if they aren’t the ultimate way that Hashem runs the world, why not use them with our children? Can they really cause any harm, and might they actually help a child to behave better? Now I will bring in the research I have culled together, which I have condensed into 10 reasons why we should not punish our kids:
1. Punishment doesn’t really “work”-it may stop a behavior in the moment, but when there is no threat of punishment, the child will just do it again, so it doesn’t work long term (which is what chinuch is all about!). Even if it does work for the future, that is just training them to do something based on an external threat, and not having it become part of who they really are.
2. Even if you are not concerned about them internalizing the lesson for the future, in the moment, when a child is misbehaving, they are usually not acting from their rational brain. They are triggered by stress which causes release of cortisol and/or adrenaline, and the rational parts of their brain are shut down (what we call “fight or flight”). So very often, punishment won’t “work” because they are not able to think rationally and stop themselves when there is a threat of punishment.
3. Additionally, punishing them won’t help them calm down in order to maintain self-control; they need self-soothing skills to calm their psychological state and then learn to self-control when they are calm.
4. Even if the child does appear to calm down, it is not always getting them to the calm state that is desirable. Punishment may make a child “look” compliant when they are actually in a state of “freeze” which is even a worse response to stress than the classic “fight or flight.”
5. Punishment instead of working through problems with the child teaches children that the way to solve problems is to cause someone else to have a painful experience (physical or emotional).
6. The majority of punishments are done out of anger or revenge, or our personal offense at our child’s actions, which could make the child angrier at the parent. This could ruin the relationship with the parent.
7. Time-out from positive reinforcement, a common-used form of punishment (which comes from studies with animals), has many problems. First of all, it causes power struggles with strong-willed kids (as I can attest to from using it in my own life years ago!). But even deeper, when a child is left alone to “calm down,” they don’t end up learning how to process their emotions. They end up stuffing their emotions, or ruminating on how mean their parents are and maybe plotting revenge….Worse of all, they are receiving the message that if they misbehave, they will be abandoned (for something that was probably not even in their conscious control!).
8. Criticizing children (which is also a form of punishment) causes children to view themselves very negatively.
9. Punishing a child puts the focus on the child himself, rather than on trying to repair what he did wrong.
10. The punishing voice becomes our child’s inner voice and how he views himself.
These points are all backed up in research, and make sense if we see the relationship with the parent as the model of our child’s relationship with Hashem. Do we want them to feel that Hashem is abandoning them when they do something wrong, that Hashem is harsh and wants to punish them, that they are “bad” in Hashem’s eyes when they feel out of control? Or do we want them to feel that Hashem loves that and will never abandon them, that it’s okay to make mistakes, that all emotions are okay, and, most importantly, that they can learn ways to calm down and eventually improve, with our help?
I know what you may be thinking….so what do we do if we don’t punish!??
That will be the topic of the next blog….stay tuned….