Yes, that´s a difficult question. Shall we use physical punishment in bringing up ourchild, or not? Different countries have different methods of upbringing. In many countries, such as Great Britain, the USA or France, physical punishment is seen as something unaccurate and dangerous. What keeps Czechs in it?

It is always an effective, easy and quick way. You don´t have to spend time reasoning, discussing and negotiating. It usually works at the very moment. Even a threat of physical punishment can do the job. If you „point“ your slap on to the „soft parts“ of body, the child usually doesn´t get hurt much (if you don´t count their pride). And almost all of us were brought up by this kind of upbringing. These are the positives.

What are the negatives? There is always a danger of those parents who can go too far and hurt their children by using bigger force than is needed. That may cause not only a physical, but also a mental damage to the child. To avoid these situations psychologists suggest banning all physical punishment.

Try to imagine the situation: Mumissmac king the child on its back side, shouting: Do not hit the youngers. This is at least absurd. Some psychologists say that physical punishment use will lead to asocialbehaviour and physical violence. But that is not proved. Many of us were slapped as children and we do not beat our wives, husbands or children. Nor the claim that it may damage the relationship between a parent and a childis true.

But if you do not like the idea of physical punishment, you may want to know how to avoidit. There are many ways and none of the miss easy to LEARN.

  1. There is some kind of behaviour whichis better to ignore. It usually only make suspay attention. If we ignore it, it will fade away.
  2. If you decide to change something (for example a bed time routine), say what and why are you going to change, than change it and do not make any step back. Have strong will! Things will get worse before they get better.
  3. Remember that a tired parent is a nervous and powerless parent. So have lots of sleep and take a breake very day. You will not lose your temper so easily.
  4. Do not repeat things over and over. Act! Should your children wash their hands before lunch? So do not serve lunch until it is done.
  5. Do not criticize the child. Just name the activity which is not right. Try to avoid imperatives, they make your child „fightback“.
  6. Do not forget to praise a good behaviour. Just show that you have not iced it.
  7. My advice: If it doesn ´t work, spank the childJ

Here´s just a short extract from McCall Smith´s Tears of the Giraffe: When she  [MmaRamotswe] was young, a woman would have picked up a boy like that and spanked him on the spot.(…) Would that boy have dropped the can in the first place if knew that somebody might spank him? Probably not.

Andrea Leskotová