My husband and I never had our own children, but our work brings us into contact with families and children. Although I'm not against the use of corporal punishment, I feel it is overused in both families and schools here in Kenya. It occurs to me that people here don't know any other way and perhaps if they could be offered some practical advice about how to discipline in other ways, they would be quite willing to use the "cane" less. Are those of you who are parents able to offer some advice to me (and also perhaps to other readers) of non-corporal punishment ideas that they found to be quite effective?
Although this is not technically about scripture, loving relationships are a central part of Christian life, and also I feel it's important for Christian families to be a good witness to others.
In the past God has blessed me by letting me come into contact with some of the most beautiful children ever, but they also needed discipline at times. At that time when I worked spankings were not allowed by rules of the parents(I was a babysitter) so time outs were given as punishments. Basically if one of the kids did something that required some sort of punishment I would get a chair and put it in a specific part of the room and
the child was made to sit there for a number of minutes while his or her siblings got to continue playing. The method I used was the age method..if the child was 2 he sat for 2 minutes and the older the child the more the minutes. This shows the child that with his or her actions there comes concequences because as they sit they see the other kids are having fun while they must sit in time out. It may take a few times of doing the time out method to work but honestly it worked really well for me and the kids learned from it and more times than not they did not repeat what they got into trouble for in the first place. Its also important that when time out is given that at the end of it you get on the child's level(kneel infront of them and get eye to eye) and ask " do you know why you are in time out" wait for the child to answer and tell you why and then when they do explain to them " that whatever they did was not nice and if they do it again they will end up right back in time out again" I'll give you an example
Me: Johnny do you know why you are in time out?
Johnny: yes because I hit someone and it wasn't nice
Me: That's right..you wouldn't like to be hit so don't do it to others and if you do it again you will be right back here in time out.
Then what I did was finish with a big hug and usually a kiss to the forehead and send the child back to playing.
I've never been married or had kids of my own but do I hope this helps you out some and I will be lifting you and the children of Kenya up to the Lord in my prayers.
