Corporal punishment is just another name for child abuse and brutality
Sir Frank Peters :
I find it incredible that in this age of mass communication and alleged enlightenment there are still heated debates ongoing about corporal punishment in schools and homes. The USA in particular is in a moral civil war about it and many Americans choose to stand on pedestals of ignorance and ignore facts and truth.
What’s preventing alleged God-given human instincts or moral conscience from kicking-in and simply affirming corporal punishment in any environment is evil and wrong?
Why isn’t it obvious to everyone there is, and never was, justification for corporal punishment in schools (or homes)? And if you think you have found justification for the barbarism and inhuman practice in the religious adage ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, you are gravely mistaken.
There are those head-in-the-sand hard-liners who dig-in their heels, stand firm, and shield their ignorance from the truth behind the adage, smugly proclaiming the good book isn’t wrong – and they’re right: the book isn’t wrong, but the interpretation of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ is!
In Hebrew the word “rod” is the same word used in Psalms 23:4, ‘thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.’ The shepherd’s rod/staff was/is used to encourage, guide, and discipline the sheep towards taking a desired direction, not to beat, hurt or damage. No shepherd would damage his stock and lower his profits. Translated correctly it would read, ‘spare good guidance and spoil the child’.
The only right time to hit a child is ‘tomorrow’… and that never comes. Where in the Bible does it say that Mary and Joseph beat Jesus?
Discipline – yes! Corporal punishment – no!
Corporal punishment is related to discipline like chalk is to cheese. Everyone needs discipline. Every aspect of life demands discipline. The laws of nature are based on discipline. While discipline is constructive and high up in the good values scale with the likes of oxygen and water; corporal punishment is diagonally opposite.
To some ‘teachers’ corporal punishment is a kind of daily human sacrificial offering to their God (whoever or whatever theirs might be) and is simply another name for child abuse, torture, intolerable cruelty and brutality. If there was ever justification for corporal punishment in schools it would be its use on law-breaking ‘teachers’, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
Many corporal punishment perpetrators are cowards and weaklings who strike fear into fragile, vulnerable, impressionable and defenceless young children. A clear indication of character flaws, mental illness, ignorance (or all three) in the perpetrators.
Corporal punishment has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It wrecks the confidence and stifles the development of children; physically and mentally damaging them, and speaks no praise of the perpetrators or the society that permits it. Inflicting physical blows and mental torture upon a child only breed’s resentment, violence, disrespect, hatred and vengeance in the child and promotes retaliation and monstrous bad behaviour, immediately or in years later.
Adults who say ‘I’m okay, corporal punishment has done me no harm’ are deceiving themselves, living a lie, and suppressing their inner pain, hurt, and disappointment.
Corporal punishment was acceptable in society at one time, even believed good for the child, but those were the dark ages of ignorance, DDT, Asbestos and more recently Fluoride.
If any parent want their son to be a physical and mental wreck: violent, abusive, aggressive, a wife-beater, drug user, and all that is abhorred and detested in society; all they have to do is send him to a school that promotes corporal punishment and he will graduate with honours!
What parent (in their right mind) would want a headmaster, ‘teacher’ or any other sadistic authority figure (not in their right mind), inflicting mental anguish, physical trauma, pain and suffering upon, and damaging, the child they claim to love?
A child’s developing hand is particularly vulnerable because its tendon, ligaments, nerves and blood vessels are close to the skin. Striking a hand with a stick can cause deformity, fractures, dislocation, impaired function and lead to osteoarthritis in later years when the actual act of punishment is long forgotten. Say goodbye to any ambitions of he/she ever becoming a classical pianist or brain surgeon!
Let’s put all the tons of priceless research that’s available to the side momentarily and just focus on one side effect… stress.
It’s commonly known that stress is responsible for incalculable minor-to-major health ailments and is the No. 1 killer globally. More people die from stress-related illnesses each year than any other disease.
Credible research has shown that stress can cause inflammation to cells, tissues and blood vessels and that hitting or even just yelling at children can trigger a significant chain of biological changes that can damage their future health.
Now put this in the context of corporal punishment. Long before the pain of corporal punishment is triggered, the mind of the child switches to stress mode… thinking about the imminent pain to come.
Fourteen girls at the Talimul Quran Mahila Madrassa in Bangladesh were literally branded for life with a red-hot cooking spatula by their ‘teacher’ in the name of ‘discipline’.
Fourteen God-loving innocent children stood shoulder to shoulder as their demented ‘teacher’ went shamefully along the line branding them like animals, one-by-one, on the back of their legs with a red-hot cooking spatula. The stench of the burning human flesh alone would have triggered humongous stress.
Now imagine you were one of the girls and you’re at the end of the queue.
You would have listened to the sizzling sound and smelt the burning hair and flesh as each stumbled, writhed in pain, crying for mercy. You would have heard the deafening cries for help and watched the tears of sadness; anger and hopelessness freely flow from the eyes of your friends… and worse to come… your turn!
How stressful could that be?
How horrific? How sad? How inhuman? How wrong!
It’s almost five years since noble Justices of the High Court Divisional bench Justice Md. Imman Ali and Justice Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif outlawed corporal punishment in Bangladeshi schools and madrassas. They defined it as ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom’.
Unfortunately, many headmasters and ‘teachers’ still disagree and will continue their despicable practices until they are arrested, jailed, sacked, or meet the wrath of the child’s incensed family (as is happening more often nowadays).
If you really love and want to protect your child, it is your duty to God and child to tell the headmaster/’teachers’ that you do not want him/her to be given corporal punishment. Write, phone, but preferably visit the school and make your demand known… it’s your right by law. The gratitude, respect and love you’ll receive from your child will be priceless and eternal. Love has no value until it’s validated: love demands proof.
Every newborn child is a saint in kit form; a spiritual Lego set … just needing proper assembly. If you can’t help them achieve their God-given mission, then at least don’t hinder them.
( Sir Frank Peters is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, an award-winning writer, a Saudi and European royal goodwill ambassador, humanitarian and human rights activist.)
I find it incredible that in this age of mass communication and alleged enlightenment there are still heated debates ongoing about corporal punishment in schools and homes. The USA in particular is in a moral civil war about it and many Americans choose to stand on pedestals of ignorance and ignore facts and truth.
What’s preventing alleged God-given human instincts or moral conscience from kicking-in and simply affirming corporal punishment in any environment is evil and wrong?
Why isn’t it obvious to everyone there is, and never was, justification for corporal punishment in schools (or homes)? And if you think you have found justification for the barbarism and inhuman practice in the religious adage ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, you are gravely mistaken.
There are those head-in-the-sand hard-liners who dig-in their heels, stand firm, and shield their ignorance from the truth behind the adage, smugly proclaiming the good book isn’t wrong – and they’re right: the book isn’t wrong, but the interpretation of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ is!
In Hebrew the word “rod” is the same word used in Psalms 23:4, ‘thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.’ The shepherd’s rod/staff was/is used to encourage, guide, and discipline the sheep towards taking a desired direction, not to beat, hurt or damage. No shepherd would damage his stock and lower his profits. Translated correctly it would read, ‘spare good guidance and spoil the child’.
The only right time to hit a child is ‘tomorrow’… and that never comes. Where in the Bible does it say that Mary and Joseph beat Jesus?
Discipline – yes! Corporal punishment – no!
Corporal punishment is related to discipline like chalk is to cheese. Everyone needs discipline. Every aspect of life demands discipline. The laws of nature are based on discipline. While discipline is constructive and high up in the good values scale with the likes of oxygen and water; corporal punishment is diagonally opposite.
To some ‘teachers’ corporal punishment is a kind of daily human sacrificial offering to their God (whoever or whatever theirs might be) and is simply another name for child abuse, torture, intolerable cruelty and brutality. If there was ever justification for corporal punishment in schools it would be its use on law-breaking ‘teachers’, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
Many corporal punishment perpetrators are cowards and weaklings who strike fear into fragile, vulnerable, impressionable and defenceless young children. A clear indication of character flaws, mental illness, ignorance (or all three) in the perpetrators.
Corporal punishment has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It wrecks the confidence and stifles the development of children; physically and mentally damaging them, and speaks no praise of the perpetrators or the society that permits it. Inflicting physical blows and mental torture upon a child only breed’s resentment, violence, disrespect, hatred and vengeance in the child and promotes retaliation and monstrous bad behaviour, immediately or in years later.
Adults who say ‘I’m okay, corporal punishment has done me no harm’ are deceiving themselves, living a lie, and suppressing their inner pain, hurt, and disappointment.
Corporal punishment was acceptable in society at one time, even believed good for the child, but those were the dark ages of ignorance, DDT, Asbestos and more recently Fluoride.
If any parent want their son to be a physical and mental wreck: violent, abusive, aggressive, a wife-beater, drug user, and all that is abhorred and detested in society; all they have to do is send him to a school that promotes corporal punishment and he will graduate with honours!
What parent (in their right mind) would want a headmaster, ‘teacher’ or any other sadistic authority figure (not in their right mind), inflicting mental anguish, physical trauma, pain and suffering upon, and damaging, the child they claim to love?
A child’s developing hand is particularly vulnerable because its tendon, ligaments, nerves and blood vessels are close to the skin. Striking a hand with a stick can cause deformity, fractures, dislocation, impaired function and lead to osteoarthritis in later years when the actual act of punishment is long forgotten. Say goodbye to any ambitions of he/she ever becoming a classical pianist or brain surgeon!
Let’s put all the tons of priceless research that’s available to the side momentarily and just focus on one side effect… stress.
It’s commonly known that stress is responsible for incalculable minor-to-major health ailments and is the No. 1 killer globally. More people die from stress-related illnesses each year than any other disease.
Credible research has shown that stress can cause inflammation to cells, tissues and blood vessels and that hitting or even just yelling at children can trigger a significant chain of biological changes that can damage their future health.
Now put this in the context of corporal punishment. Long before the pain of corporal punishment is triggered, the mind of the child switches to stress mode… thinking about the imminent pain to come.
Fourteen girls at the Talimul Quran Mahila Madrassa in Bangladesh were literally branded for life with a red-hot cooking spatula by their ‘teacher’ in the name of ‘discipline’.
Fourteen God-loving innocent children stood shoulder to shoulder as their demented ‘teacher’ went shamefully along the line branding them like animals, one-by-one, on the back of their legs with a red-hot cooking spatula. The stench of the burning human flesh alone would have triggered humongous stress.
Now imagine you were one of the girls and you’re at the end of the queue.
You would have listened to the sizzling sound and smelt the burning hair and flesh as each stumbled, writhed in pain, crying for mercy. You would have heard the deafening cries for help and watched the tears of sadness; anger and hopelessness freely flow from the eyes of your friends… and worse to come… your turn!
How stressful could that be?
How horrific? How sad? How inhuman? How wrong!
It’s almost five years since noble Justices of the High Court Divisional bench Justice Md. Imman Ali and Justice Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif outlawed corporal punishment in Bangladeshi schools and madrassas. They defined it as ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom’.
Unfortunately, many headmasters and ‘teachers’ still disagree and will continue their despicable practices until they are arrested, jailed, sacked, or meet the wrath of the child’s incensed family (as is happening more often nowadays).
If you really love and want to protect your child, it is your duty to God and child to tell the headmaster/’teachers’ that you do not want him/her to be given corporal punishment. Write, phone, but preferably visit the school and make your demand known… it’s your right by law. The gratitude, respect and love you’ll receive from your child will be priceless and eternal. Love has no value until it’s validated: love demands proof.
Every newborn child is a saint in kit form; a spiritual Lego set … just needing proper assembly. If you can’t help them achieve their God-given mission, then at least don’t hinder them.
( Sir Frank Peters is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, an award-winning writer, a Saudi and European royal goodwill ambassador, humanitarian and human rights activist.)
