SPARE THE ROD AND….
“The vulnerability of children, their rights to dignity and to have the paramountcy of their best interests upheld, as well as the availability of less restrictive means to achieve discipline, render moderate and reasonable chastisement unconstitutional.” These were the words of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng at the Constitutional Court on 18 September 2019, when he made a ruling that made corporal punishment in South African households unconstitutional and illegal. The Chief Justice was, in fact, endorsing a ruling made by the High Court in 2017.
So, what exactly does this ruling mean in layman’s terms?
According to Childline South Africa, any form of “hitting, slapping, pinching, pushing, shaking and kicking; depriving a child of food, rest or movement, forcing chillies, washingup liquid or other irritating substances into their mouth or anywhere on their body; and/or forcing them to sit or stand for any length of time” – constitute corporal punishment and could land you in hot water with the law. Under this new ruling, you will be prosecuted for assault if found guilty, and earn a criminal record for the abuse charges. As if that isn’t scary enough, your children can be taken away if the court does not consider their environment suitable for their emotional well-being. This law, however, did not go down well with many South Africans. Some argued that too many children’s rights and coddling had resulted in them being spoilt, and so fearless that they viewed murdering their peers simply as a joke gone wrong.
SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING
Being a parent doesn’t automatically make one an all-knowing human being. Parents come with their own imperfections, biases, and stressors that could possibly see them taking a “bad day” out on their children — only to feel guilty later. But, some parents consciously discipline with the intention of correcting wrongdoing. As the saying in some black families goes: “It is important for children to be reminded of who the grown-up is in the relationship as they can easily be manipulative.” Some experts argue that corporal punishment only serves to make children fear the adult unleashing it. Secondly, it inadvertently teaches children that physical and emotional violence are acceptable and justifiable.
While still serving in her role at the National Centre for Children in Poverty at Columbia University in 2002, American psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff conducted a study — published in the American Psychological Association’s
Psychological Bulletin — in which she looked to explore the positive and negative impacts of corporal punishment. Using data collected over 62 years, Gershoff looked for trends such as “immediate compliance, moral internalisation, quality of relationship with parent, and physical abuse from that parent” in children whose parents often used corporal punishment. “The general consensus is that corporal punishment is effective in getting children to comply immediately, while at the same time, child abuse researchers caution that by its nature, corporal punishment can escalate into physical maltreatment,” Gershoff wrote. Yet, she warned that her findings should not be assumed to mean that “all children who experience corporal punishment turn out to be aggressive or delinquent. A variety of situational factors, such as the parent-child relationship, can moderate the effects,” she said, adding that there needs to be a thick enough boundary line drawn between plain punishment and abuse — the emotional type included.