Discipline in Question
By Bob Branco
I’m sure that when most of you were young children, you were punished by your parents from time to time. Punishment takes on many forms, such as spanking, time out, or removing something that the child enjoys. Though I don’t believe in spanking, other types of discipline are appropriate under certain circumstances. A common term for this is “Tough Love”, while you are trying to teach the child right from wrong so he can be a very respectful individual.
I don’t need to remind you of how completely watered down our society has become. I think you know this, so I don’t need to prove it. What I will do is give you an example of how discipline is questioned by professionals today, and how parents have to walk a thin line just by being parents.
One day several years ago, a 5-year-old boy was mean to a little girl in school. He may have pulled her hair, hit her, or called her a name. The boy’s father found out about the incident and proceeded to punish his son. Now, keep in mind that the father didn’t spank his son or give him a time out. Where the incident happened on a Friday, he told his son that he couldn’t watch television for the entire weekend. I think it was a fair punishment in order to remind the boy that he should always be kind to others and not pull their hair.
When the little boy returned to school, the teacher found out about the disciplinary action handed down to him by his father. Dad may have wanted to reassure the teacher that he was fully aware of how mean his little boy was to his classmate, so he did something about it. Well, the teacher didn’t take too kindly to the punishment and decided to report the father to an agency. How dare he take the television away from his son for two days! I believe the agency was either the Department of Social Services or the Department of Children and Families. In any event, the father was officially charged with disruption of social stimulization. In the eyes of this particular agency professional, the little boy’s social stimulus was disrupted by not having the television on. Can you believe it? We have become so politically correct in this country that you can’t blink an eye without getting in trouble. As far as taking the television away for the weekend, I’m sure many of you would have given anything if your parents had only done that to you when you did something wrong. I don’t think your parents would have been reported by your teacher and charged with disruption of social stimulization. It’s even to the point where professionals are so politically correct that they use words that are not even in the dictionary. According to spell check, there is no such word as stimulization, yet that word was used as part of this father’s injustice.
As I said earlier, parents need to walk a thin line all the time. What if your little girl asks you for milk and cookies before bedtime and you refuse to let her have them because it’s time for bed. Careful now! You may be charged with depriving your child of sufficient grains. Now you wouldn’t want that charge hanging over your head, would you?
In all seriousness, this article serves as another reason why I worry about the future of our country while disciplinary actions are watered down to the point where they hardly exist any longer, and if these actions do exist, they are questioned.
