One Mistake One Beating…
You have done this, you did that, why this? What were you thinking? All resulting to beating, why? It’s so pathetic that at this age, we still find parents who see no other means of correcting their children other than flogging their butts to serious pain, or worse still, inflicting injuries on the skin of their children.
“Charity begins at home” is what most parents that fall into this group seize to unleash terror on their children. Nobody is saying you shouldn’t train your children, mould them to have good character, build them to be honest, loyal, hardworking, prayerful, and patriotic among other virtues, but all am pointing out is the fact that too much beating disturbs a child psychologically. You can beat a child, but let them see it as the last option, when you have talked to a child, scold him a times and if he doesn’t change scare him/her with a cane, by flogging with caution.
When you call their attention to certain things and they don’t yield, you then introduce a cautious beating. The child would also sit down to think, oh! Mum doesn’t beat me o, means have crossed my boundary, and so he/she changes for good.
Cautious beating! Yea cautious beating, when some parents are enraged, exasperated and annoyed, they tend to beat their children anyhow- random beating. The cane meets the head, and other delicate parts in the course of the action, and then the child starts watering a problem grow. Even if at all no problem is caused, the injuries itself are problematic! A boy sees a friend of his in school, and sees his body beautifully designed with beating, and ask, were you hit by a trailer or something, the lad replies saying, oh! No, might be uncomfortable saying his mum caused it, and so would lie saying another thing, then what charity begins at home?…
It’s true every parent wants the best for their children but not at the expense of exposing them to psychological problems. You would be surprised to hear a 7 year old boy say his parents don’t like him, as a result of them flogging him every now and then, he further says, his friends don’t get the same share of what he gets at home, and as such the boy is left to thinking why such is happening to him. Would that type of a boy listen in class? Would he make good grades? And if he doesn’t pass he still has an unpleasing gift to receive at home. So who is hurting who? What about the boy that doesn’t accept sorry for anything in the world? Who blames him? When his parents don’t too, he beats his siblings mercilessly when his parents aren’t around. You then begin to ask yourself how his parents have benefitted him with the beating.
“Spare the rod and spoil the child”, beat them when they do things you don’t like which you have corrected them on, they are your children, but still, with caution. Some parents would beat their children ruthlessly, and would still be the one rushing them to the clinic, running up and down to pay bills. Maybe some parents don’t get it right, they feel if they beat them they wouldn’t want to repeat the action again. Ask anyone and they will tell you, when beating is too much the child doesn’t fair the beating again, and as such no correction is made again. It thus becomes a normal thing as the gas we inhale.
This applies to teachers too, who derive joy in beating students for the slightest mistakes. What impression do we create for these young minds? If you ask me I would tell you, no student likes a teacher who beats all the time. You beat all the time and scare them away, from you, your subject and everything, and you then later complain they aren’t passing your subject, how would they?... We use to have a teacher in school then, he hardly flogs, he was free to students but still the mark for respect wasn’t compromised, his subject gets accolades all the time, students pass easily and get to tell him what their problems were concerning his subject.
That memorable day he flogged me, I felt bad myself, if this uncle could flog me, then I went too far myself. He left the class and I jumped out after him, to ask for forgiveness. That’s how it should be, let them know the right thing but not always with caning them. The room to flog them would always come after much persuasion, and then they dance to the tone of the music, skelewully or shokilly.
Beating children or students should come last always; better methods or approaches should be taken to correct wrong attitudes in them.
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From the desk of Tijani Sheriffdeen Opeyemi, a student of the prestigious University of Ilorin, of the department of Anatomy.