Now that we understand how a child perceives the punishment-based training advocated by CBT and have gained a better appreciation of the contrast between the perception and reception of our actions versus our benevolent intentions, let’s examine our own thoughts, feelings and motivations when we administer punishment to a child.
When our child throws their toys about, answer us back, hits another child or whines and cries without apparent reason, not surprisingly, we immediately grit our teeth and come face to face with OUR OWN seething Anger! This Anger is normal and arises naturally. From there, undoubtedly our impulse is to feel the desire to punish the child. So when Anger mounts toward our stubborn, testing child, we easily and reflexively raise our voice, put on an Angry visage and say: “I told you NOT to do that!”
If the child pays no attention or refuses to stop, we must admit that although we are trying our best to contain ourselves, we still fume inside and seek to vent our own natural response of Anger to their behavior. Now, with the support and approval of research methodology, CBT entitles us to administer a fitting punishment. Our only limitation is that the punishment should NOT be abusive. At this point we have our innate Anger working for us as well as the approval of CBT experts to safely say “Go upstairs to your room, and you have Time Out for 10 minutes – or else no dessert for you tonight!” This of course is considered a logical and humane solution to the problem.
So we must ask: By justifying our actions and only specifying how and what kind of punishment to administer, in what way has CBT been helpful? Isn’t it merely giving us permission to act on our own spontaneous Anger? Aren’t humans naturally inclined to become Angry and aren’t they inclined to punish children anyways for bad behavior? In other words, without the help of CBT, parents would surely follow their instincts to punish their children just the same, as they have done throughout time. They used to justify disciplinary action by resorting to religious belief that calls for us to “spare the rod and spoil the child”. So, by re-naming punishment as ‘training’ or ‘teaching’, or through religion telling us that our instructions to punish come from a higher source, do these methods do anything more than give us the green light to put into action our natural Anger with our child? As one educator once put it: “Punish them for misbehaving? Who didn’t think of that?” More crucially than this, these tactics permit us to lose sight of our hostility, whether transitory or continual, toward the child. They give us the permission to believe that our actions are logical, justifiable and supported by legitimate, “evidence-based” research or otherworldly sources.
DOLIF psychology maintains that by condoning and indulging natural parental Anger, CBT does nothing more than give us the professional license to proceed with punishment! CBT places the sole condition that we should punish them humanely. But what does this mean? It only tells us that we must find ways to punish that are other than physical. Beyond that, almost any form of punishment is acceptable. Time Out, docking privileges or enforcing a curfew seem to be fine. Even boot camp, interventions, severe physical exercise or yelling in their ears are considered acceptable. Yet one could well argue that many of these methods are abusive. For example Time Out where a child is sent to spend time alone in her/his room is a form of social isolation or shunning that is humiliating and could be considered one of the most cruel types of punishment. Interventions are a form of extreme social pressure by loved ones under threat of abandonment, and boot camp is intended to be physically and mentally stressful. The same can be said of yelling in their ears to “scare them straight”, subjecting them to severe physical exercise, locking them out after a curfew or giving them an ultimatum such as one that forces a child to move out of their home prematurely. These are all merely forms of punishment that are not directly physical, but in their own way more than mild.
Although it is recommended by CBT that punishment be administered in an Emotionally detached, non-judgmental way, unaddressed by CBT are the hurtful comments or gestures that tend to go along with punishments and undermine the SELF such as “See what you did? Go away! You’re such a pest. Why do you always have to disturb everybody? Just go to your room – we don’t need you here!”
So DOLIF raises our skepticism that there is in fact very little real scientific substance behind the current recommendations for child-rearing in psychology. It firmly maintains that they are a concoction of the logical Adult Mind and have little if anything to do with the true basis of child behavior. And this lecture is intended to help parents look for modalities other than punishment that can help them raise children who are mentally healthy. DOLIF aims to educate parents by giving them insight into their own Anger toward their misbehaving child. Here we hope to explain to parents how their actions are received by their children, and help them detach or distance themselves from their natural inclinations to punish negative behavior. (Continued in Parental Anger and CBT – Part 3)
