1. Hi Doctor Mahesh, please state your full name and designation ( this is so I can identify you in my article)
Mahesh Rajasuriya
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo
Consultant Psychiatrist, National Hospital of Sri Lanka
2. Corporal Punishment at school, includes slapping, caning and other forms of physical abuse. What kind of a psychological impact/ effect does this have on the child/student?
- Corporal punishment may be actual, witnessed or threatened. Whichever it is, the psychological sequelae are similar. Repeated corporal punishment is more likely to have longer lasting and more devastating effects, because it produces an extremely high level of stress called “toxicstress”. Toxic stress has been clearly shown to physically affect the development of the brain of the child.
- It produces intense fear, fear of physical pain, humiliation, powerlessness and Habitual fear impedes the development of the personality of the child. It tends to make the child a passive, cowardly, introverted, submissive person. Habitual fear erodes the assertiveness, independence, imagination, innovativeness in a child.
- The child who gradually loses assertiveness may become passive, aggressive or passive-aggressive. (for more info http://mentalhealth.lk/English/You_and_other/So%20you%20think%20you%20are%20assertive.html) Such a child may grow up into an anxious adult or an antisocialadult, but surely into an adult with very poor self-esteem and self-confidence.
- The child may accumulate hate, despise and resent towards the particular person who inflictsthe These negative bottled up feelings may become generalised to all adults or teachers or authority figures (such as police), or to the entire society.
- Corporal punishment changes the value system in the child. It teaches the child that a less powerful person can be subjected to physical and psychological pain as the more powerful one pleases. It teaches the child to accept hurting others through violence as a valid way to change behaviour of people.
3. Can Corporal Punishment be called abusive?
- Absolutely, Corporal punishment is always administered by a person with power (muscle power, authority or otherwise) on a person with less power (such as a child or a prisoner); hence it is clear form of abuse – child abuse if inflicted upon a child.
4. What is the ideal way of disciplining a child?
- This question is almost irrelevant as corporal punishment has very little to do with disciplining a child.
- Children need to learn to delay immediate gratification of impulses (e.g. eating the egg beforeeating the rice, or listening to another song when there is a need to study maths for the next thirty minutes), so they can focus and achieve objectives they want to achieve.
- Performing rituals in a military style (such as tying the hair in a specific way in braids or folding the sock in a particular style) is less important in life, and sometimes quite boring and anti-creative, compared to the ability to delay immediate gratification of impulses.
- Corporal punishment may be effective in inflicting military type ritualistic “discipline” in children, but teaching them to delay gratification is much more important, which cannot be achieved with humiliating punishments.
5. What are the long term effects of Corporal Punishment?
Please see Q2.
6. Is it possible for an adult to overcome the trauma, he/she experienced due to beatings inflicted when he/she was a child?
- Yes, if the adult can forgive the person/s who inflicted the pain and humiliation, or if they canachieve a sense of justice by somehow making the perpetrators realise of the grave harm they caused, giving a sense of closure to the pain they suffered as children. This may be done through self- exploration, help of others(such as friends, lovers, and family), professional help and other ways.
- However, children are very resilient. Many of those who are subjected to corporal punishment show minimal negative effects as adults. This can be enhanced by other helpful persons or situations in life which function as buffers for “toxic stress”. A wonderful grandparent, or a genuine friend, a kind teacher, or even a pet, or the nearby stream that flows silently soothing the abused little body of the child, may have an incredible cushion-effect to dissipate the toxicity of corporal punishment.
7. Why is it some educators and adults try to justify the use of physical force on a child?
- The powerful person who lacks a good self-esteem and self-confidence is perpetually under threat of becoming less powerful at any moment. So she needs to repeatedly prove to her that she is very powerful. Punishing and humiliating a child is a sure way to do this, as the child cries, or winces in pain, the perpetrator can be certain that at that particular point in time she is more powerful than the child. It gives a sense of assurance.
- Many, if not all, also learn to derive a certain sense of pleasure by inflicting pain in others.
- All those who stand for corporal punishment may deny above explanations, but a close observation of their lives will tell many tales.
8. Does a person use physical force on a child because of the beatings he/she suffered when he/she was a child? Is it a case of the victim becoming the perpetrator?
- The explanations for this are given in Q7.
- A child who received repeated corporal punishment may grow up into an adult with aggressive or antisocial behaviour and very poor self-esteem and self-confidence. This adult may later feelvery powerful and superior by way of punishing less powerful persons such as children or prisoners. However not all who engage in inflicting torture or corporal punishment are abused.
9. Is there treatment for these perpetrators who were once victims?
- Severe punishment is a very good
- They may also be helped as mentioned in
- Professional psychological therapy may be helpful, and even essential, in selected people.
