The Difference Between Punishment And Discipline
There is a big difference between punishment and discipline when it comes to educating and correcting children. Punishment is more focused on making the child suffer a consequence for having broken a rule, while with discipline what we do is teach them to make the best decision if the same situation happens again. It is important that we clearly know this difference when raising our children.
We all know that educating children is not an easy task, but we need to be clear about some aspects and guidelines when educating. In this way, we will be more successful in your education without having to inflict suffering. In the following lines, we will see in more detail how both concepts differ.
What is punishment?
The punishment is based on the establishment of a result, often negative, for breaking rules or standards. This feeling or need to punish children may come from the parents’ frustration at not knowing what to do or from their despair.
Some parents feel compelled to yell, hit, or remove privileges to send children the message that they either change their behavior or face negative consequences.
Punishment tries to control the child instead of teaching him to control himself. Punishments can often change a child’s thinking about himself or herself. When severely punished, a child may think “I’m bad” or “I’m not a good person” instead of concluding that he didn’t make the right decision.
Parents who have an authoritarian educational style are more likely to punish their children. A spanking is intended to cause physical damage to the little one so that he doesn’t misbehave again. This can cause not only physical damage itself, but also psychological damage, damaging the child’s self-esteem as well.
Are punishments and punishments a good option?
Punishments are not a good option for educating children. They don’t teach them to behave, allowing the misbehavior to be repeated later. If a child gets spanked because he hits a friend or sibling, he doesn’t learn to resolve his conflicts peacefully. Also, she will be confused because she won’t understand why her parents can hit her, but she can’t hit a friend or sibling.
Punishment also increases anger toward the person who punished, rather than making the child understand the reasons why he or she did this behavior. So instead of thinking and pondering how to do better the next time he finds himself in the same situation, the child is stuck in a corner for a long time wondering how he can get back at the person who put him there.
What is discipline?
The discipline , as opposed to punishment teaches children skills and resources to learn how to manage their behavior and solve problems at the same time controlling their emotions. With discipline, we help children learn from their failures and teach proper ways to combat emotions such as disappointment or anger. Some disciplinary techniques are the removal of privileges or free time.
The aim is to give children a negative consequence so that they can make better decisions in the future. Good discipline must have clear rules and negative consequences if the former are violated. Punishments have more disproportionate consequences. For example, when a child does not want to turn off the television, the punishment would be to leave him without watching television for a week, while discipline would leave him without television for 24 hours.
Why is good discipline the best option?
We can say that discipline is more proactive (preventing behavior problems and making children learn from their mistakes) rather than reactive (reacting to bad behavior by establishing a consequence). Positive discipline techniques include reward and praise systems.
Positive reinforcement will keep a behavior going and will give children positive incentives to respect rules and norms. Discipline will help make the relationships between parents and children more positive, so this good relationship will reduce the children’s desire to attract the attention of their parents, thus promoting their good behaviors.
As for the difference between punishment and discipline…
As you have seen, punishment and discipline are two very different things, both in form and in the results they produce. Punishment is more likely to cause annoyance or suffering in the child, while discipline teaches them to think and understand why a bad decision can lead to negative behavior. In this way, it is possible for the child to think about it the next time and not act in the same way again, learning from their own mistakes.
