Spare the rod, love your child

 I have observed that children nowadays are too difficult to educate. But I consider myslef to be lucky to have 6 year old kid who is a cheerful lad, one who doesn’t do anything that would in any way disrespect his parents or any other adult. Being his mom, I had decided long before that I would never beat him. He does act stubborn sometimes, but every child his age goes though that stage when he/she acts stubborn.

He has just started his first grade and I noticed that the syllabus was too much for the kids of his age, but all of them seemed to be catching up fine. My kiddo is not bad in studies, but I noticed that he had not been completing his school books. We (I and hubby) began to scold & warn him to complete his work in school itself. His teacher told us that he was slow in writing. This became a daily happening and was cause of much concern for us. I began to beat him to scare him & make him understand that he needs to complete his writing work in school.

Next day, he wrote faster, yet he had still missed out 2-3 lines. I was tutoring him at home, so that he writes fast in school. When he used to bring back incomplete books, I used to feel enraged, as the remaining content had to be obtained from some other child’s home. That used to hurt my ego, quite a lot. Few days back, I had taken leave from work due to ill-health and brought my child back fm school. No sooner did I see his 2 sentences, I realized he had yet again not completed his work. I just took a stick and beat him up. He cried and yelled to spare him, but I didn’t relent.

After a while, he showed me the injury that my blows had caused below his knees. I realized that I had exceeded my limits and checked him up. His clear skin had grey marks in some places. I regretted my behaviour and apologised to him. I tried to hug and pacify him, but realised that his arms were not encircling me as he always did. His emotional wound was far deeper than his physical wounds. Even if I am the mother, I have no right to beat or cause serious problems to my own kid. He is just an innocent being, who has placed complete trust in his parents, to protect him from any danger. How could I beat him so rashly?

All of this can cause serious mental and psychological problems in the kid. He would begin to hate the parent who had hurt him so much, the relation between son and parent can be seriously damaged with this. I was sure that I didn’t want my son to see me as a monster or tyrant. I wanted him to come to me in case of any problem, without feeling scared of me.

I learnt a lesson that day, to never ever hit my child. There are definitely better ways to make him understand.