Spare the rod, inspire the child Saturday, 14 January 2012 01:52

Mohsin Thiyab Al Suwaidi and Dr Mozah Al Malki

Corporal punishment most likely leads to psychological scarring in the victim and needs to be discouraged

By Mohammed Iqbal & Ali AL Moaty

Using corporal punishment as a method of disciplining children at home and at school is an issue being debated worldwide. Several countries including Qatar have banned corporal punishment in schools.

Incidents abound of children badly beaten up by teachers and school officials having been reported from all over the world daily, even from countries where the practice remains banned. Spanking at home is even more common and most such incidents go unreported.

Even a developed country like the United States is no exception. According to a memorandum submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the education authorities in the country in 2010, hundreds of thousands of students are subjected to corporal punishment in public schools in the US every year.

“Despite the many problems associated with the hitting or paddling of students, corporal punishment is a legal form of school discipline in 20 states. Of these, thirteen states have reported that corporal punishment was inflicted on over one thousand students and eight states reported its use against at least ten thousand students, during the 2006-2007 school year,” said the memo.

In an earlier study, psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, looked at both positive and negative behaviours in children that were associated with corporal punishment.

In the study, which included 62 years of collected data, Gershoff looked for associations between parental use of corporal punishment and 11 child behaviours and experiences.

Gershoff found “strong associations” between corporal punishment and all eleven child behaviors and experiences. Ten of the associations were negative such as with increased child aggression and antisocial behaviour. The single desirable association was between corporal punishment and increased immediate compliance on the part of the child.

“There is general consensus that corporal punishment is effective in getting children to comply immediately while at the same time there is caution from child abuse researchers that corporal punishment by its nature can escalate into physical maltreatment,” wrote Gershoff.

A variety of situational factors, such as the parent-child relationship, can moderate the effects of corporal punishment. Furthermore, studying the true effects of corporal punishment requires drawing a boundary line between punishment and abuse. This is a difficult thing to do, especially when relying on parents’ self-reports of their discipline tactics and interpretations of normative punishment.

“The act of corporal punishment itself is different across parents — parents vary in how frequently they use it, how forcefully they administer it, how emotionally aroused they are when they do it, and whether they combine it with other techniques. Each of these qualities of corporal punishment can determine which child-mediated processes are activated, and, in turn, which outcomes may be realised,” Gershoff concluded.

The meta-analysis also demonstrated that the frequency and severity of the corporal punishment matters. The more often or more harshly a child was hit, the more likely they are to be aggressive or to have mental health problems.

A fresh debate on the issue has been going on in Qatar following a recent incident in which a Grade Two student of a private school was badly assaulted by the school principal using a sharpened pencil.

The principal allegedly stabbed the boy with the pencil in his arm and the back until he was injured. The principal also used abusive words during the ordeal.  

The parents of the traumatised boy filed a police complaint against the principal, which was later referred to the Public Prosecution for further investigation. The Supreme Education Council (SEC) the regulatory body for private and Independent schools also launched a probe into the incident. The Qatar Foundation for Protection of Women and Children came forward to provide treatment to the boy, who reportedly developed psychological problems following the incident.

The incident also prompted the SEC to issue a fresh circular to all the schools warning them against using corporal punishment as a discipline technique, saying the practice is banned in Qatar. The SEC also warned that teachers or school administrators resorting to the practice could face dismissal and could be permanently banned from working in the education sector.

The incident drew wide public attention due to the nature and severity of the punishment resorted to by the said principal. Reacting to the incident, prominent Qatari psychologist Dr Mozah Al Malki told this newspaper that the principal must have been suffering from some psychological problem and needs treatment.

Many in the academic community consider the incident as an aberration and maintain that corporal punishment has not been used in schools here as a common disciplining technique.

They, however point out that the same cannot be said of spanking at home, since they had come across several parents who insist that their children can be disciplined only through physical punishment.

While admitting that corporal punishment can have a negative impact on the child’s behaviour and personality, some teachers believe that there is no harm in using light forms of physical punishment to discipline a naughty child.

“Corporal punishment can affect the child psychologically. There are alternative ways of disciplining a child who is not attentive in the classroom such as engaging him in activities that suit his interests. However, I believe a teacher can use some simple techniques like beating lightly with   a smile, in a way that would not cause pain nor make the child nervous,” said a woman teacher working with an Arab private school.

She said there are many parents who resort to harsh physical punishment to discipline their children because they are not aware of the consequences of such behaviour.

“Once a father told me he used to beat his daughter at home for not helping her mother in cleaning the utensils,” she said.

Azza Farouq, principal of an Egyptian private school felt that corporal punishment was not being commonly used in schools in Qatar.

“ May be some teachers are using simple forms of physical punishment. Some still carry a stick or a rod to the class room just to draw the attention of the students by beating on the desk. But I have seen students in our school who have been beaten up by their parents. We advice such parents not to do that,” said Farouq.

“Beating is not a proper method of dealing with children. A teacher can use his voice or body language to make the students attentive in the class,” said Mohammed Salah, an English teacher working with an Arab community school.

Nargis Raza Otho, principal of the Pakistan Education Center (PEC) believes that no form of physical punishment is recommended for disciplining children.

“The practice is banned in Qatar and we have also banned it in our school. Corporal punishment in all its forms is to be discouraged. It has no role in education and can have only a negative impact on the personality of the child,” said Nargis.

“We have formed students groups in our school to engage with children having behavioural problems. We try to involve them in activities that they may find more interesting such as sports, drawing, painting and other creative jobs,” she added.

In her view, simply ignoring a child who creates problems in the class could have a better impact than beating him up.

“If we deliberately ignore a child who does mischief in the class it may generate a sense of guilt in him and prompt him to change his ways. There are also other effective ways to make children more attentive in the class. Physical punishment could make the child depressed and feel humiliated. We should respect the personality of the child,” said Nargis.

According to Jaya Manohar, student counsellor at the MES Indian School, corporal punishment can only make children more rebellious and frustrated.

“The problems that children face at home are mostly reflected in their behaviour in the classroom. Physical punishment can only aggravate their frustration, whether it is used by the parents or teachers. We should address the root cause of the problem and deal with such children by not hurting their dignity and self respect,” said Jaya.

Several parents openly admitted that they resorted to spanking as the last resort of disciplining their children.

“I cannot tolerate my children surfing the internet or disobeying their mother. I would advise them twice or thrice and if they don’t listen, I would beat them up,” said Mohammed, an Egyptian engineer.

There are laws in the country to prevent child abuse. The Qatar Foundation for Child and Women Protection received more than 1,600 complaints of child abuse during 2004-2010, according to a report released by the Foundation. But as Gershoff pointed out, who would draw the line between punishment and abuse?

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