Sometimes
Earlier today, I was on Facebook and one of those short clip movies came up and I decided to watch. It was a high-school movie. It had a scene where a substitute teacher was introducing herself to the student and then one of them said something extremely rude to her and all she did was place the kid on detention.
I continued to see the movie but it was as if half of my brain was focused on it, while the other half was wondering what would have happened to that kid if he had said those same words to a teacher here in Nigeria.
I've once written a post about sparing the rod but the truth is that, we can't always do that. There are times where a child needs to be flogged and punished when they do something wrong.
I went to one of those high schools where the teachers were basically the number one in the school. If you should look at them in a way that was considered rude, you will be flogged for it. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't like they were flogging us for everything we did, no.
There were times where we would play with them like they were our friends but we did all of that with respect and making sure not to cross any unfamiliar boundaries. We could joke with them, but there were things that we just couldn't say to them because they were our teachers.
Now I know we might argue that the respect we show to them is as a result of the fear of getting flogged and that is very correct, but who said fear was bad?
There are times where fear is absolutely necessary because it keeps some certain things and people in place. If there is no fear, there will be a lot of chaos. Fear is what stops a lot of people from robbing the bank till this day because the thought of getting arrested and locked up for the rest of their lives keeps them in check.
So you see, that kid knew that the worse that could happen to him was go sit in detention for a few hours and then he goes back home, that was why he had the courage to say what he said. If he had that fear of getting flogged or severely punished in his mind, he probably wouldn't have said those words to his teacher.
This is basically why some African parents take their pregnant wife abroad to go deliver the child (so that the child can become a citizen of that country by birth) then they bring the child back to their own country when he or she is about 4-5 years to train them before sending them back when they're much older. They do this because they know that over here, they get the freedom to train the child in a way where he or she grows up to be the good child they want before sending them back.
I guess at the end of the day, all I'm trying to say is that talking and trying to reason with your child is good, but there are sometimes when you need to pick up that belt and let he or she know that there are other ways you can correct them if they continue to mess up.