Spanking strengthens behavior that parents try to repress – 07/15/2023 – Equilíbrio

No one likes to be hit, but many people still consider hitting to be a good way to teach children. Aggression, physical or verbal, however, hinders more than it helps, stimulating behaviors that those responsible seek to reduce.

Curbing the urge to spank, scream or insult is easier when you pay attention to what the child is saying and to their own motivations at the time of anger, experts say.

In addition to being smaller in size, children have fewer physical, cognitive and psychosocial resources to say what they feel — something natural in those who are developing.

This understanding made all the difference for librarian Mayara Parolo Colombo Reibaldi, 40, mother of little Giovanni Colombo Reibaldi, 4.

Before motherhood, Mayara thought “I was beaten and never died”. If she saw a child having a tantrum in the restaurant, she thought that a spanking or a “tug on the ear” would do them good. Parenting, however, changed her perception. During pregnancy, she devoted herself to reading on the subject to understand the best way to care for her child.

“That opened my eyes. We are not here to raise survivors. I want my son to be a happy, safe, empathetic person. To be all that, I understood that he needs to be raised with love. I live in trial and error”, he says the librarian. “I’m the rational adult. He’s a kid, he’s verbalizing what he feels and dislikes the way he knows how.”

To avoid blowouts with Giovanni, she goes to therapy and yoga, and takes a break if she needs to clear her mind and focus on her irritation. “Slapping a child is a great cowardice. When we have a disagreement with an adult, we don’t slap them, because we respect them. When the child screams, the first desire is to yell back at him. It’s hard to hold back that momentum,” he says.

The approach is approved by psychologist Patricia Leila dos Santos, professor at the Department of Neurosciences and Behavioral Sciences at FMRP-USP (Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo).

According to the professional, responsible adults must tolerate the child’s frustration, which often involves aggressive or impulsive behavior, in addition to crying. According to her, it is important to give the child time to calm down, as physical punishment has short and long-term negative consequences.

Little ones can, for example, nurture anger and want to fight back, repeating the behavior they want to repress.

“In addition to learning that hitting is a problem-solving strategy, in this case, learn to hit as well,” she says. “Depending on the time and quality of interactions that the child has with their caregivers (parents, nanny, grandparents), getting some attention can be much more important and rewarding for them, leading them to repeat the behavior.”

Physical punishment leads to feelings of sadness, irritability, leading to emotional or behavioral problems, such as depression and anxiety, and interfering with the quality of future relationships, according to the professional. Punishment with derogatory words that make the child feel guilty, inadequate, unloved, or ignored can be even worse.

Writer Ligia Moreiras, PhD in Collective Health from UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), was also confronted by the topic during pregnancy. For her, growing up in a home where education is synonymous with violence makes the child have self-esteem problems, believing that love can go hand in hand with aggression.

“I had a typical childhood of my generation. In the 80s, spanking was encouraged, violence was seen as a form of correction. And we were left with two problems: realizing that it was not positive and transforming our own way of raising children .”

How to deal with a crisis

Facing a crisis involves understanding the feelings of everyone involved: the child and those responsible. Caregivers need to understand what makes the behavior so bothersome that they want to hit. Once the problem is identified, it’s time to act firmly, but without ceasing to be kind.

“Respecting the child is far from allowing him to do what he wants. Speaking with an appropriate tone of voice, without shouting or raising your voice, pointing out what he did that was not nice, giving him the opportunity to speak and encouraging him to think in other ways of acting is the way”, says Santos.

It is also important to emphasize the qualities of the little ones, emphasizing the desired behaviors. When establishing rules to guide and set limits, remember to maintain flexibility, communicate and combine earlier than expected, in addition to, above all, being consistent.

“If a rule is not to hit people, but the parents use physical punishment, there is no consistency”, exemplifies the psychologist.