on discipline and incarceration

Why is it that the poorest are the most unfortunate? They have lack of or no access to education, food, shelter,clothing, and sad to say.... discipline. The best word i could describe how the urban poor in the Philippines behave is ROGUE. Four of the five definitions that the 3rd edition of Webster’s New College Dictionary offer for the term “rogue” are deeply unflattering. A rogue, according to Webster’s, is: 1. An unprincipled person: scoundrel. 2. A playfully mischievous person: scamp. 3. A vicious and solitary animal, as an elephant that has separated itself from its herd. 4. An organism, esp. a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard. 5. Archaic. A wandering vagrant. According to the Metallica song, SAD BUT TRUE. Is it because of poverty that they lack discipline and act out of social conformity and do what they do? Is this reasonable? Can't we blame them? And is this a good reason for them to be at the bottom of the Philippine social stratification? Have they done this to themselves intentionally? I can't answer these questions but I have made this part of one of my advocacy to promote discipline among Filipinos and to improve the justice system in our country. These social problems arise from discipline problems. The emphasis on discipline isn’t just an historical relic.  These days we’re spared the florid and exhortatory rhetoric beyond the vision of human nature, a commitment to discipline may reflect a tacit allegiance to philosophical conservatism with its predictable complaint that our society -- or its youth -- has forgotten the value of hard work, the importance of duty, the need to accept personal responsibility, and so on.  (Never mind that older people have been denouncing youthful slackers and “modern times” for centuries. More than this, it weakens the capacity of these communities to be self-regulating social spaces. Many young men in these communities cannot be active parents if they have children, and many do. Even once they return from prison, the stigma of a criminal record severely reduces their employment prospects and further reduces their attractiveness as potential marriage partners for their children’s mother. The end result is that individuals, families, and communities are rendered systematically more vulnerable to future, deeper involvement in crime. By reducing parental capacity to parent children, by further weakening already challenged family structures and resources, and by making already disadvantaged families and communities even less economically viable, does incarceration help to rectify a social dynamic that is likely to encourage further involvement in crime? There is good evidence that high rates of incarceration destabilize families, increase rates of delinquency, increase rates of teenage births, foster alienation of youth from pro-social norms, damage frail social networks, and weaken labor markets. It requires a stretch of logic to think that our current policies and practices are not merely falling short of the goal of seriously curbing crime: they have, in fact, begun to contribute to it. We have to call for a new penal philosophy. A policy should set as a central criterion that the justice system contribute to the quality of life in communities—to help make the places where people work, live, and raise their families good places to do these things. And now we could all sleep soundly at night. Right?

to punish.....or not to punish

Thank you Mrs. Bruce!!!  I got this idea from her. She said that discipline is often thought to be punishment. When people say to discipline a child, it connotes to punish a child. And this should not be so. Discipline is a teaching/learning process. It is establishing the boundary which the child is allowed to do and have and which is not. It is reprimanding, explaining and teaching why there are things that a child are not allowed to do and to have. Punishment on the other hand is a negative consequence for misbehavior. It is used to reduce, if not eliminate misbehavior. And it is seldom used. Misbehavior is something that we should expect. Children are inherent to misbehave simply because they don’t know yet which is right from wrong, proper from not, safe from harmful. Another reason why children misbehave is also for the lack of time, and attention of the parents. Children yearn for approval and acceptance. Like adults, it is something that they have to feel to be happy. And the parents’ inattention and lack of time could mean otherwise. This would then prompt the kids to do things that will catch the parents’ attention, and often it means misbehaving, when this happens, most often than not, parents resort to punishment. Punishment is not something we do to a child when he behaves the way we would not want him to. Actually punishment, when used as the every resort to discipline will only make a child behave worse. Punishment should and only be used when talking and explanation of consequences to a child does not work. And again, when we say we talk to a child and explain why things are not to be, it does not mean also once. We have to consider the age, or level of understanding of a child. For ages 1-4, expect that you have to explain things with love and patience several times before you could expect the child to obey. For older children, when thoroughly explained the situation to them, most often they obey at once, especially if explanation comes with a hug and a kiss. Discipline is not all punishment. It is just a part discipline. And most often, in disciplining our kids, punishment is rarely needed. For our kids to behave, we only need to discipline them, rarely to punish them.