Mental Scars
Children exposed to ongoing corporal punishment are at risk for poor mental health, including depression.
That’s according to Psychiatrist June Price-Humphrey. She was one of several speakers at a seminar entitled ‘Parenting in the 21st Century Discipline as an Avenue for Success’, hosted by the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation and the Barbados National Council of Parent-Teacher Associations at the Springer Memorial Secondary School.
“They are sad [and] withdrawn. So now you have a quiet child who is not getting into mischief, but that child’s mental health is not the best. Or you have an anxious child, one of these children who are unable to step out into the world and face reality because they are frequently afraid that someone will shoot them down. And for those of us who say ‘Well I used to get beat and nothing is wrong with me’, I challenge you to look at those things, look at situations where you find yourself hesitant to do certain things, to assert yourself, to be appropriately positive, to face certain situations; and though you do not think at that moment somebody is going to beat you down, that really is the genesis of that hesitation,” the psychiatrist explained.
She said corporal punishment succeeds in immediate compliance from children, but she noted that it does not lead to children internalising the moral and behavioural outcomes that are desired, and does not teach them pro-social behaviour.
“Because in the end what you want is change, not just for them to stop what they are doing now, but to do something else, something better next time. So you have a child that would be immediately compliant, they would stop doing what you don’t want them to do right now, but what behaviour should they replace that with?... Corporal punishment on its own doesn’t improve the actually pro-social behaviour that you need, it just stops the negative behaviour you have at this time,” she said.
Price-Humphrey added, “And then there is always the risk of physical injury – so we have the welts, the bruising of the skin, the red and black and blue marks… [But] the emotional consequences are not so easy to see.”
The psychiatrist further warned that the use of corporal punishment normalises violence, such that if a person does not like another’s actions or comments, they think they can hit them.
“You see it even on the playing field when children are outside playing and two little children get into a quarrel over something and instead of working it out, they take a hand to each other because that is what they are used to. They are used to being struck when an adult doesn’t like what they are doing, so when their classmate doesn’t like what they are doing, they hit each other. I am not talking about tussle and rough playing,” she noted.
With that in mind, Price-Humphrey lamented that children can take that aggression into adulthood, which could result in even more unsavoury behaviours. (JRT)