Foster Care Book: Chapter 16

Chapter 16 - Punishment

We, in foster care, are taught that we cannot touch the children in discipline. We believe that is absolutely wrong but abide by it because it’s the ’rule’ and we have promised to follow the ’rules.’ We are of the opinion, however, that spanking of children, even to the age of twelve or thirteen, is an absolute requirement. It generally hurts the parents more than the kid but it gets the point across that unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated.

There have been many, many articles and books printed that state that spanking a child produces a physical abuser when the child grows up. That is pure concentrated monkey milk. It was probably generated originally by a clinical psychologist who obviously never had kids. He probably wrote a paper which caused the concept to be carried forth by other clinical psychologists. Those psychologists probably never had children, either. If they have, they are probably the worst kids in the world and will most likely wind up behind bars. I have always said, "My father taught me respect in the wood shed."

My dad did not spare the rod and yet I not only loved him, I admired him. I cannot ever remember hitting either my children or my wife except to spank my children, when necessary None of my children appear to be spouse beaters or child abusers and they certainly have never thrown their children away. It is not a hand, or a wooden spoon to the bottom that’s the problem I have also heard that one should never spank a child when the parent is angry. Again foolishness! You are angry because the kid did what you just told him fifteen minutes ago he should not do. Of course you are angry but the punishment needs to be doled out immediately when the infraction occurs Discipline is essential! It is necessary to create boundaries and identify what happens if rules are not followed. It is necessary to be responsible for your own actions and mentally structures why laws and control are necessary in any society. The form of the punishment or discipline must be based upon the severity of the crime - - AND - - it must be immediate; something our court system has forgotten or never knew.

We have attempted to lay out beforehand the consequences of each ’crime.’ Sometimes that does not work. If the child is astute (and believe me most of the kids from dysfunctional families are because they have had to be), they will decide what punishment they can tolerate (or put priorities on their punishment). They will do the things, that they want to do, which fits into their scheme of acceptable punishment. It is necessary to apply the trial and error technique to determine what will or will not work with a particular child.

We have had to change the punishments for various ’crimes’ as time went on because the child became ’immune’ to one type or another. We do look for something that is ’near and dear’ that we can ’take away’ as a final pressure point. We feel we have been successful in about seventy-five percent of the cases. We have run into cases where no punishment has been effective. Those are the cases where we are convinced spanking would have done the trick. By the way, psychologists will also tell you never to embarrass the kids, especially in public. We try to do so whenever we get a chance, if it is warranted. There is rationale for this - - The punishment is metered out when the violation occurs. This teaches the kids to accept and deal with embarrassment (since it will happen to them frequently during their life). The kids will act up in public assuming you cannot correct them. They need to be taught differently! Acting out becomes a habit and part of the child’s makeup. That trend needs to be ’short stopped’ before it becomes a habit (if it is not already).

One thing must be in the fore-front of the foster parent’s mind constantly. The punishment is not being doled out because there is something wrong with the kid. It is being doled out because there is something wrong with the actions of the kid. We had a sixteen year old who stole a hand gun from my gun case. I kept my gun case in our bedroom. He had been told (as all the kids are) that our bedroom is ’off limits.’ He took the gun because one of his ’friends’ told him he needed one for protection. The police recovered the gun within twenty-four hours (thank goodness). I pressed charges and told Social Services he had to be removed from our home. He was placed in a group home. We went to visit one of our other foster kids at the ’home.’ I saw him on the grounds and walked up to him and hugged him. He gave me a strange look and said, "How can you press charges against me and then hug me and act as if you like me the next time you see me?" I said, "As I told you when punishing you from time to time - - I am not punishing you, I’m punishing what you do. I love you but I hate what you do." To this day, I still don’t think he gets the distinction. It is a really difficult concept for teenagers to handle because they are generally self oriented as part of the normal makeup of teenagers.

That is not only a tough concept for children. Have you ever had a friend whom you liked a great deal but he/she was fouling up. You tried to tell them and they immediately took it that you didn’t want to be their friend anymore? Even so, it is absolutely necessary that when one of the kids commits a crime that the foster parents report him to the police. I would do that with my birth children that the foster kids do not understand. "You would turn in your own family? My family would never do that!" Response - - Why not? Breaking the law is breaking the law no matter who is responsible. Zero tolerance must be maintained for many actions.

Speaking of punishment - - There is one licensed clinical psychologist with a Ph D from the University of Chicago who believes that parents should never use discipline His name is Thomas Gordon. Dr. Gordon’s booklet is entitled "What Every Parent Should Know." It was published in 1975 and 1987 by the National committee to Prevent Child Abuse. I do not know his family status, but I only bet on sure things, and I will bet he has never fathered a child that he is responsible to raise. He claims that discipline is power and as the child gets older, the power of the parents diminishes because the only thing left is to take away the car keys. I completely disagree with this premise!

If the parents have been smart and doled out punishment at the appropriate times and the punishment has been appropriate, the child will have become ’trained’ to be a reasonable teenager long before he/she is old enough to drive. This, of course, is not the same with foster children. Raising a foster child is like training your own child from birth even though the foster child may be a teenager. We then refer back to the Un-Learning and Therapy (discussed earlier) phases. One of the chapters in Dr. Gordon’s booklet is entitled "The Terrible Dangers of Discipline." From my perspective, there are no dangers in the use of discipline but there sure are many pitfalls in not using discipline or punishment. Our country’s city and town streets and its

jails are full of the results of ’spare the rod and spoil the child.’ The bible is also full of examples of the need for the discipline of children. Admittedly, Dr. Gordon’s booklet is over ten years old and he may have learned enough to have changed his mind by this time. Lets hope so!. The main problem with raising children by clinical psychology is that it is aimed at the small minority of parents who are abusers. By today’s standards that means that all of us will be forced to raise our children based upon the standards set for abusers. Instead of punishing the abusers and continuing on, laws are passed who force us all to suffer (including the kids). That’s what bureaucracies do. The attitude is - - We will see that no one else ever makes that mistake again! That seems kind of a strange approach but it is how bureaucracies start.

The following is a letter to the editor in the Danbury (Connecticut) New Times by Ralph Gaspard. I have never met Ralph, but he seems to recognize the problem and states it rather succinctly:

"WHAT HAS IT SOWN?"

I think it started when Madelyn Murray O’Hare complained that she didn’t want any prayer in our schools.

Then someone said you had better not read the Bible in school - - the bible that says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Remember Dr. Benjamin Spock, who said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self esteem?

Then someone said that teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And our administrators said whoa, no one in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be Sued.

Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want, and we won’t even have to tell their parents.

Then someone else said, let’s let our sons and daughters all have the condoms they want, so they can have all the "fun" they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents.

And then some of our top officials said that it doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. And we said, OK, as long as I have a job and the economy is good, it doesn’t matter to me what anyone does in private, it’s nobody’s business.

Someone said, don’t stifle your children, let them make all the choices they want. Do not give them selective options to choose from. They will learn from they mistakes.

So now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "We reap what we sow."

Whoa! What a concept!

It sure would be nice if the ’hands off’ approach to handling children could be reversed as rapidly as possible. I don’t think it is possible for this country to continue to be able financially or emotionally to handle many more divorces, frivolous law suits, lack of discipline of our children and the decline of families. One would think that the American people would wake up to the fact that the policies of the past 30 years have been to the extreme detriment of the country. One would also think that the politicians, psychologists, and others involved with family values and traditions would evaluate their approach and get the message that there thinking is completely convoluted.

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