Mar 27 2008
She was hit till mouth bleeding
This morning I sent Ian to school, and I learnt a horrible news.
She had a bleeding, and she kept quiet. When her mom discovered blood on her hand (she wiped with her hand), her mom realized what has happened.
Yesterday, she came to the school and demanded to see Ian. She told Ian not to hit Amelia again. Ian cried on the spot and apologized to Amelia and her mom.
I have been trying to probe him to tell me more about his school life, everyday! But he didn’t tell me this yesterday despite we had a long chat.
The teacher also complaint that after that incident, he still hit another girl, Carmen, on her head!
What should I do with him?! I explained to him many times, but he still like to hit other kids! He hits Isabel at home, and I knew he would hit others in the school. I somewhat expected this would happen (i.e. other parents would come to protest), but when this really happened I just can’t accept it!
I can’t be caning him?! Though DH suggested this morning when I told him, I still feel caning is like telling Ian “violent is acceptable if I am stronger than you“! It is like “I am your mom, that’s why I can hit you. If you want to hit others, go hit weaker/smaller people, like what I am doing now!”.
I don’t like to convey this message, but what really can I do? Whatever suggested in the parenting guides doesn’t work! He is not afraid of time-out, though he hated it. When asked to perform time-out, he’d just refused and walked away. What can I do? What can I do????!!!!
Cane.
More cane.
And more cane.
And still, many guys have turned out to be a nice kid.
Just like me!
Jason: ya, but I also read many domestic violence is a psychological damage from childhood violence.
Hmm.. maybe should get Ian a pet. Something that won’t die easily but train him to take good care of it.
Cane, like hitting with a stick?
Hmmm.
There is always a reason why a child hits other children.
It’s important to find out what his reason is.
Does he feel unwanted or unhappy at school. Does he see other people hit others and he just copies the behaviour?
Some children with an autism spectrum disorder hit other children in an attempt to get contact.
Hitting is always unwanted, but when he has been told, and he still does it, there is a reason.
I don’t know his age, but often playtherapy by a good therapist helpts to find the underlying cause.
Hitting him won’t help.
You can’t tell him not to do it and do it yourself to him.
Isn’t it strange when your parents tell you they love you and they hit you?
A child might even think: hitting=love.
Wow, does he love the children at school….
You see what I mean?
You, as his parents, are not only responsible for him not hitting, you are also responsible to teach him to get insight in his behaviour. It’s so important a child learns why he does things.
Sometimes a professional is needed to find that out.
Better now than later.
Good luck!!
Lays: thanks for the suggestion.
Laane: I’m really glad that you left this comment here. I agree strongly with you, that’s why I was hesitate to cane him last nigth. How can I tell him that, “I am going to hit you because you hit others. I can hit you but you cannot hit others”?! This is not right!
And after I read your comment about the ‘playtherapy’ this morning, I immediately did a roleplay with him, asking him to pretend that I was the girl, and asked him to repeat what happened that day.
It worked!! I have been asking him verbally yesterday, without any success – what I got was only apologies. With roleplay, immediately I learnt the cause of the ‘violence’.
It wasn’t what we all thought. It was just an accident! He was just too playful and active. While he was swinging his hands, it got onto the girl’s face.
I am so glad that you pointed me to the right direction. Many, many, thanks!!!
I think there is a difference between hitting and lashing out in anger/furstration to caning in the form of discipline. It’s true that caning a child have repercussion, but the difference between the two is that one is done in love. If a child is loved, i truly believe that he/she is able to differenciate between the two as they will know and trust why their parents are disicplining them. Just my two cents abt your comment on “violence begets violence”…
[...] so glad that Laane commented in my previous post, about Ian hitting his friends [...]
Controlled canning is not violence. If my children hit anyone, I will asked them to put out their hand and punished them. If you don’t do that, they will become spoiled brad.
If you do not train him from young, worst can happen.
JasonL/michelle: Thanks for the comment. I think this is really a good discussion on the topic. Hahaha!
I found a very good article on this hitting/caning/disciplining issue. Why not give it a read? I think argument 3 and 6 are particularly fitting for our discussion here…
http://stophitting.blogspot.com/2006/01/back-in-good-ol-days-and-other.html
Cheers!
It’s very “bei min” already that after caning a child and you explain the reasons of him getting the beating. That’s the modern way of caning.
Boys will still be boys, you know.
I don’t agree with the ‘caning will teach him violence is acceptable’ method.
I like Jason also got caned a lot, it didn’t make me a violent person. Ever hear of the old saying “spare the rod and spoil the child”? Look at some of the western children in the US brought up by parents who buy into the whole ‘physiological damage if you slap your child to discipline him/her’. Personally, I don’t want to raise children to be the kind of adults I see have been raised with this method.
Sometimes just have to resort to corporal punishment if you’ve tried every other way and it doesn’t work.
Look at the animal kingdom. Like kittens. If a kitten is removed from their family too young, they 98% of the time grow up to be very aggressive and unsociable. This is because they don’t have the benefit of the mother teaching them the consequence of what it’s like when the kitten is violent. Watch a mother cat – if kitten bites her too hard or becomes too rough, she will discipline the kitten by biting it or physically hurting it (not seriously, but enough to let kitten know she means business). That teaches the kitten where the limits of good social behavior are.
Right now, your son is not understanding the whole ‘action and consequence’ connection (see how he just walks away when you try to discipline him). Sometimes kids just need to be spanked because you can’t reason with a child the way you would with an adult. Our problem nowadays is a lot of parents apply the whole ‘our child is a mini-adult’ theory – this is clearly not true. If it were true, our children can go out and work at 5 years old already.
Don’t forget now your son thinks that if he does something bad like hitting another child, his only punishment is verbal scolding, then he cries and shows remorse (even if he’s only pretending to be remorseful) and it is all over. There’s no real punishment to him.
What the other poster said about hitting out in anger v.s. hitting for a purpose is true too.
If you want to only use the time out method of teaching you must strictly enforce it. Get a timer and set it to the time out period then really seclude him and *force* him to watch the time out ticking down. You may still have to physically restrain him to force him to keep to the time out. I think the time out only really works on children that haven’t figured out they can rebel without real consequence or on children that still want to please their parents though. Sounds like your son is past that point, and he knows whatever he does, there’s no serious repurcussion from you that he can’t just walk away from if he feels like it.
Tiny Tapir: Wow! Thanks for the comemnts. You are right about my son passed the points you mentioned. I have been struggling with him even more, over the last couple of weeks. * sigh * and point taken.
Thanks!