He should not gloss over the sins of those who err, but cut them out while he can, as soon as they begin to sprout, remembering the fate of Eli, priest of Shiloh 1 Samuel 2:11-4:18 (RB 2.26-29).
With children, the proper purpose of punishment is to make the evil path repulsive. This means that there’s no question of punishing them for actions outside their control. You don’t punish infants. Punishment only becomes a factor when the child begins to exercise his or her will in a harmful way. But there’s no point in punishing the child for bad behavior if you don’t simultaneously redirect the child toward a feasible correct alternative. It’s not enough to learn what not to do. We need to know what to aim for instead. If you punish without redirecting, you’ve only done half your job.
Corporal punishment can be appropriate when the misdeed is corporal. It is fair to spank the child who throws a fit and kicks her mother. “That hurts!” she cries. Yes, and that’s the whole point of why you’re not allowed to kick and hit. Generally speaking, if the behavior involves a lack of empathy, it can be effective to give the child a taste of what he or she is inflicting on others. You can’t refrain from doing unto others what you would not want done to yourself if you’ve never suffered anything to refer to. Thankfully, human beings don’t need to suffer every possible harm in order to refrain from each particular behavior. Unlike machines, we have imagination and reason. By the time your child is old enough to carry on a conversation, you’ll be able to say: “Remember when so-and-so did such-and-such to you? Well, that’s how it felt to this person when you did that.” Most likely the child will resist the comparison, because accepting it entails accepting the whole weight of a moral life. But by practicing these small interventions, you’ll be setting your child upon the path of righteousness.
This said, there is an age that feels like an eon: the months that stretch between the time when the child learns how to walk and, so much later, when he learns how to talk. During this phase, he can be a mortal danger to himself. Each day he acquires a new ability, but you never know what he’ll be capable of next. He has neither the reasoning ability nor the verbal comprehension to understand anything you tell him. What he does understand are emotions and bodily sensations. It is certainly better to be spanked than to be run over by a truck. So, if he breaks away from you and dashes toward a busy street, and if, by the grace of God, you catch him in time, that’s the moment to get angry and yell and spank: to impress the experience into his memory, so that next time you call his name in that tone of voice, he will hearken, heed, and turn back.
This also means that you must aim to be habitually calm and measured in your reactions. If you’re always yelling and spanking, what your children will come to be good at is avoiding you. If your toddler figures out how to unlock the door when you’re not looking, and your kind neighbor returns him to you after finding him in the middle of the street, the proper reaction is not to spank the child but to install new locks on the doors so that the culprit can’t repeat his escapade. If you catch your daughter spreading a bagful of flour across the kitchen floor, when she has no concept of the difference between that and spreading paint across a piece of paper, which she has been allowed to do, you’ve got to find a way to enforce the distinction. But if you are going to spank, use the flat of your hand, because you will feel the sting too, and this will deter you from excess. No smack should produce any physical result more severe than transient pink flush on the skin.
In some situations, it can be satisfying to all concerned for you to spank the table, or the chair, or some other inanimate object that can be made to take the blame for an unfortunate event. Humor is another thing that children understand before they’ve acquired words. Through all the messes, mistakes and mishaps of life with children, a sense of humor is one of the most important traits to cultivate. This in itself can make the difference between a happy and an unhappy home.
However, if someone transgresses a law of God, you mustn’t just shrug it off and make a joke of it. Stealing, for example, is not just about secreting away a desired object. It’s an injustice with respect to a human being. And if she’s getting into the habit of it, don’t imagine that it will be easier to deal with when she’s a teenager. If she learns not to steal from stores but still pilfers around the house, enforce stronger boundaries. If she tends to take your jewelry, lock up your jewelry. Even adults have a hard time distinguishing between accessibility and permissibility. Make it harder to get the forbidden thing so that there’s a clear distinction between what she may use and what she must not take. But if she goes to her grandmother’s house and steals the purse that she knew was intended to be her sister’s birthday present, and then lies about it, you’ve got to break out of what has become a routine.
Punishment by definition is aversive to the one punished. If your usual reaction evidently has made no impression, you’ve got to brainstorm some other plan. If the mother is the one usually interacting with the children, it is fair to hand the child over for a paternal intervention. The father will have a different vantage point on the situation. He’ll interact differently with the child. His punishment, for being unusual, as long as it is unusual, may have more impact. The most important thing, though, is for mother and father to work together to convey a shared resolve: that you will not price this behavior into the cost of doing business. There are things that you won’t absorb into the lifestyle of your household. Define what she did wrong, but also describe the actions you want to see instead. Detail how she could have behaved differently at the point of temptation. Tell her that you don’t want her to grow up to be a thief. You do want her to grow up to be an honest person.
When you get angry, it’s because you care. Parents who don’t care are already long gone. But if you feel that you’re approaching a point where your anger may take control of you, give yourself a time out. Walk away, lock the door, and pray. Remind yourself of the good things in your life that you can thank God for. Allow the Holy Spirit to reassert joy. We have received a Spirit of self-control, and it’s this Spirit that we’re teaching our children to live by.
