Discipline, Not Abuse

Abuse or Discipline Abuse: (n) a·buse (uh-byoos) 1. To hurt or injure by maltreatment, ill use. Some parents try to say that the abuse that their child is enduring is to teach him/her a lesson. There is a very big difference between physical abuse and discipline for your child, and, as Bell hooks states in her essay, “Justice: Childhood Love Lessons”, love cannot coexist with abuse. I agree with her in saying, parents should discipline their children without physically abusing them. There are numerous ways to teach discipline and responsibility to a child without the use of physical punishment. As Bell hooks states “loving parents… choose punishments like time-outs or the taking away of privileges”. Time outs are usually a better punishment for younger kids but it shows right from wrong without using any physical punishment. If you take away a child’s privileges, such as, television or computer time, you are showing good discipline because they learn that they can’t get away with doing bade things without taking the consequences that go along with them. Logical consequences are another good way to discipline a child, such as having a child pay for a broken window, because they learn that they have to take responsibility for their actions. Physically abusing a child is an unnecessary and damaging way to discipline a child. As Bell hooks says in her essay “Justice: Childhood Love Lessons”, “[A mother] pinch[ed] him until he got the message…But this, too, is a form of coercive abuse”. When a parent says that they are doing the right thing by not abusing their child as much as some other adults do, it is still not treating them right. When a child is being abused it is teaching a child to hate, and not respect. An example of this is when Bob Shelby says, in his essay titled, “When My Father Hit Me”, “[when he was being abused] I covered my love with a dark cloth of hate”. This shows that, even though a child might stop from doing something a parent doesn’t want him/her to do, the child is only learning to do something even worse, hate and fear their own parents. Some people believe that physical punishment is the best way to teach a child discipline and respect. They would be wrong because when a child is being abused it is only making him/her fear and hate the parent. This can also lead to disobeying behind their back as a way to get back at them. We can learn from this paper that when a parent is using physical punishment it is abuse, not love. Therefore when a parent uses good discipline without abuse, it shows children how a responsible and loving parent teaches their child. It is our responsibility to have parents provide a loving environment for their children and never attempt to use abuse in the place of good discipline.

Works Cited
Hooks, Bell. “Justice: Childhood Love Lessons”. All About Love: New Visions. New York: Harper /Quill 2004. Print

Cited: Hooks, Bell. “Justice: Childhood Love Lessons”. All About Love: New Visions. New York: Harper /Quill 2004. Print