During the past few days, the Egyptian social media ignited controversy after two strange incidents (1,2) disappearance, which brought back fears of rape and murder, but it turned out that this was not the case, as it was really strange that the two incidents are similar, regardless of In their context, in the same mechanism, the two girls fled the house, and according to the Egyptian police and prosecutor's investigation reports, the matter related to cases of domestic violence that the two girls were subjected to.
We are not sure of these investigations, of course, but we know without a doubt that it is possible.
In Egypt (3), about 65% of adolescents between 13-17 years old are subjected to corporal punishment for the purpose of discipline, mainly at home and then school, and the situation in the rest of the Arab world - and other countries of the world that do not criminalize corporal punishment - is not different.
But apart from statistics and graphs, what is the main reason that can push a father or mother to resort to corporal punishment of their children?
It is related to what the father and mother understand about corporal punishment. According to a study (4) published a few years ago by the University of Queensland in Australia in the journal Personality and Endowment Difference, there were several basic common mistakes in understanding that are the reason for corporal punishment of children. For example, most parents believe that corporal punishment for disciplining a child does not cause harm to him, whether this punishment is continuous, or even if it is intermittent (which is the most common opinion), but the worst of that are beliefs about the role of beating.
For example, most parents believe that corporal punishment teaches the child responsibility and helps develop his personality or that it teaches him to respect others. On the other hand, there is a common belief that physical punishment is better than other disciplinary methods because it is the only thing that children understand, and therefore without using corporal punishment to discipline Children become spoiled and unruly, and this extends to another popular belief that - based on the above - corporal punishment should be used to discipline the child every time he misbehaves.
When you inflict a physical punishment on your son or daughter, the response may actually be quick, the message will be clear, and this is basically what tempts parents to use violence, simply because it is the easiest way from their point of view to convey information, but physical punishment will always escalate with time, where no (5) The same level of hitting can never maintain the same level of compliance with repetition, thus the father is forced to use mechanisms and variations of beating more severe than before, which develops in many cases to physical and not only psychological damage, and we can notice that Clearly, in the interrogations of domestic violence crimes against children in the United States of America, for example, two-thirds of them began as an attempt to correct the child's behavior through simple hitting, and then the matter developed.
On the other hand, corporal punishment necessarily contains an element of anger, and this matter cannot be controlled by a person, which takes him out of control, and incidents of domestic violence are usually associated with a simple beginning, but during the punishment process something happens, just a word or some movement, It ignites the anger of the father, so he casts him, accordingly, in the form of severe beatings on the weak son lying before his eyes.
Beginning in the nineties of the last century, research evidence began to accumulate to indicate that beating results in exactly the opposite of what you might expect, where the father or mother imagines that this will subdue the son and make him more calm, but it turns out that beating helps to develop future violent behavior, and perhaps Antisocial, in children.
It also reduces the prestige of fathers in the eyes of their children when they reach adolescence and the subsequent stages. We are talking here about huge studies (6,7,8) that examined tens to hundreds of thousands of cases.
But the most inviting reason for reflection was a study issued about two years ago by McGill University in Canada (9), which indicated, after examining 88 countries around the world, that in countries that criminalize corporal punishment at home or school, the rates of violence were 31% lower among youth and 42% between Young women, compared to those in which corporal punishment is allowed, but in countries where there was a partial ban - only in school - of corporal punishment, the level of violence among young men was similar to that found in countries where there was no criminalization of corporal punishment.
And the matter does not stop there, as other groups of studies (10, 11, 12) have linked the continuation of corporal punishment as a rearing mechanism with the possibility of future psychological illness, alcoholism and substance abuse, especially among groups that carry genetic characteristics that make them more likely to suffer from mental disorder. At that point, let us consider an interesting idea, because we know that in addition to the desire to discipline, parents with mental disorders, especially depression, tend to use physical punishment with their children, and since children are genetically vulnerable to the disease itself, all methods will lead to infection with it.
In addition, there is a clear correlation between the use of corporal punishment and the exposure of the father or mother to psychological trauma related to physical punishment while they were children, but that in turn leads us to a deeper idea about the relationship between the black duo: physical punishment and poverty, as we know that the poor are more inclined to face psychological problems. And from others, and a study from the University of Michigan (13) found that in developing countries specifically, corporal punishment may exacerbate the psychological problems of children.
On the other hand, a recent study issued by the University of Pennsylvania (14) indicated that the child's educational level is negatively affected due to corporal punishment not only related to severe beating, but also with all forms and degrees of severity of beating, and the matter extends to the negative impact of verbal violence, This is something that many studies in this scope are unanimous on.
If the talk about the damages of beating continues, we may not stop before we fill out a book, but let us consider a study (15) published in 2014 in the journal "Child Abuse and Nigelekt", and it was done by about five hundred individuals, indicating that rates ranging between 50-75% of The volunteers for experiments have changed their opinion about corporal punishment after reading some research summaries that indicate that it is not useful, contrary to popular belief, and the study has shown that most of the time the problem is related to parents' perceptions about the benefits of beating, perceptions that change as soon as they discover the truth.
Therefore, the study suggests that governments undertake broad initiatives that teach people the harms of corporal punishment.
When you give birth to your first child, you learn how to raise him through what you think was the reason for your integrity while raising you, and you will also ask those around you (friends, parents, and siblings) about how to deal, and rarely someone will resort to matters such as discipline or teaching the child discipline to a specialist Myself, and because many societies fall into a plethora of errors in understanding about corporal punishment, the cycle continues and does not stop, from grandfather to father to child, etc.
But we now know that this method is ineffective for one reason, which is that a son’s abstention from bad behavior can never happen because it was forced to do so in the context of a negative relationship between him and his parents, but in a context that assumes only one condition (16), which is his feeling of love and security Or the existence of a positive encouraging relationship between parents and children in general, and hitting - in any case - cannot represent an opportunity to show affection for a small child or teenager or even an adult young man, because the physiology of his body and his brain will not accept that argument no matter what happens.
After that comes the role of positive and negative reinforcement, which are mechanisms that include rewards for good behaviors and denial of privileges as a result of negative behaviors, provided that the deprivation is related to the consequences of the behavior itself, but if you meditate a little and learn about these mechanisms, you will find that they need two basic things, the first is attention to life The child, his desires, and his views on the issue in question, it is not just a wooden toy that must move in any direction you put it, and the second is that it will take a lot of time.
Well, this is education, friend. If you want to bring a child to the world, you must learn that you have to make a lot of effort to create a strong relationship with him that will allow in the future to arise between you at least an acceptable discussion. The most famous arguments that parents say after hitting their children are: “I am hitting you for your own sake,” but you are not really doing it for his own sake, but rather you say this instead of telling the clear truth, the truth that should state: “I am weak, and so lazy, to the extent that I take it easy and hit you instead of looking for a way. Better raising you will require a lot of effort and attention to you, a method that could have helped you in the future!
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Sources
Details of the investigations into the case of the escape of the Alexandria girl after returning to the family home
The Ministry of Interior reveals the truth about the disappearance of the "Quesna Girl": She ran away with a young man to Al-Qanater (full story)
Violence Against Children in Egypt
“Smacking never hurt me!”: Identifying myths surrounding the use of corporal punishment
Corporal Punishment
Physical punishment of children: lessons from 20 years of research
Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyzes
Fragile Families: sample and design
Corporal punishment bans and physical fighting in adolescents: an ecological study of 88 countries
More Harm Than Good: A Summary of Scientific Research on the Intended and Unintended Effects of Corporal Punishment on Children
Severe physical punishment: risk of mental health problems for poor urban children in Brazil
Corporal Punishment in Children and its Implications on Mental Health
Spanking and young children's socioemotional development in low- and middle-income countries
Physical abuse and punishment impact children's academic performance
Parents less likely to spank after reading briefly about its links to problems in children
Guidance for Effective Discipline