How To Treat Other People - Part 4 of 4

The famous poem, “Children Learn What They Live,”* begins,

• “If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.

• “If he lives with hostility, he learns to fight,” and so on.

If we would relate such thinking to punishment, that line might read,

Punishment is based on the belief that inappropriate behavior is best changed through pain (or the threat of it), whether physical or mental. Our culture reinforces that idea a thousand times a day – the way traffic violators are handled, what schools do with students who ignore rules, how we respond to our children’s misbehavior.

As a society, we hope that punishment will teach a lesson. Of course, it usually does teach something, but probably not what’s intended!

Carefully watch the play of a child whose discipline commonly includes punishment. See what he does when one of his “subjects” misbehaves. Most of the time he will begin with some form of punishment.

• So, what is the main thing he has learned from his own punishments?

In a nutshell, he has learned how to treat people who misbehave. In other words, he has learned to motivate or control his “subjects” with punishment (or the threat of it)!

The sad thing is that punishment does work pretty well, if you are mostly interested in simple compliance. But, what if you are interested in real communication? Ask yourself, “In the end, does a child learn better through punishment and fear or through positive direction and reinforcement?”

In my own case (Cal speaking), I saw a huge improvement in my communication with children when I quit punishing and started using more positive approaches like the ones we teach in this column.

So, the next time you’re about to correct some misconduct with punishment, first ask, “If the only thing my child learns from this event is how to treat another person who does wrong, what is he going to learn?”

• Whatever method you use, understand that he will eventually use it too!

* By Dorothy Law Nolte, © 1972