Journal #5

What is a fair twenty first century punishment for kids? Well I have no idea, but I can possibly come to a consensus after discussing some possible outcomes and related topics. So the board states that the article is turning off the internet, removing facebook, and grounding kids from online games. Well as these seem to be updated forms of punishment for kids. The underline theme of punishment for kids should be to temporally remove something from them that they want, and to make them regret what they did and not want to do it again. I'm not entirely sure if this is achieving that, but it is a start. It is far better than beating children, all that does is plant the seeds of defiance, and thus causes them to act out more often. At least that is my opinion on the subject. So is the removal of technology a worthwhile solution to the punishment crisis or whatever it is being referred to as. I like crisis so I will address it as such. Anyways this solution is probably a decent solution. As it takes something that kids feel entitled to having and removes it so that they realize that whatever they did was wrong. Another problem with the punishment thing is that some parents don't have what I like to call restraint. This means that they have no idea when to stop, and thus they cross the line into child abuse which is bad. Mainly because that is very harmful to the children in the way that it makes the child fear the parent, which causes a problem. A child should not do something that is wrong because it is wrong, not because they fear punishment. It is hard to achieve this mindset due to children not understanding morals. So in reality there really is no way to perfectly raise a child, but I would suggest leading by example, and teaching children about morals, and leading by example. This way the children know the difference between right and wrong and don't do bad things because they are in fear, but because they choose not to. This way the need for discipline is practically erased as the children are morally guided to do the right thing in most situations. Unfortunately this kind of thing is hard to pull off for various reasons. One is that children don't listen as well as some would hope. Another is that some parents don't have the patient or know how to accomplish this. I certainly have no idea of how this could go about as being accomplished, but it is possible. Just more possible for some than others. Also in the case of discipline being required, I would have to agree that the removal of technology could be a good way to go about it. Unfortunately there is no one wonder discipline that works for everyone. So to discipline a child you need to truly know it to know what is best for it.