Discipline or Torture
When does discipline ends and torture starts? When to discipline a child or man? Or how it must be imposed? Sometimes being a disciplinarian does do well but oftentimes it is used in a “not so proper way”. I am quoting those words because many might oppose if I will say “wrong way”. Who am I, anyway, to justify right or wrong discipline? We are all living on a standard and everything depended on a person’s perspective. (And I respect that, these are all mind swirling opinions, anyway)
Every word that came out from your mouth is always remembered in any way possible. It might not be on the very same day you said it but time will come that mind will restore that stored nerve-wracking, self-shattering words in relation to what the whole being is experiencing for some time being. It might be helpful or it can be a trigger for some bad or good notion. So, it is always said that be careful in releasing words even if you don’t really mean it or even if you are just joking(?).
Words can create fear and it might lead a person to rebellion just to conquer that fear even if it means making his life miserable, just to mask that fear which he doesn’t want the world to know he have. Because every person on earth has the very instinct of survival and conquering fear is one of the examples of surviving. It will be awesome and remarkably amazing if the surviving got on all by himself, nobody was hurt, but mostly, it doesn’t happen that way. Oftentimes, there’s someone who was impaired along the way of struggle. Sometimes the one who was hurt were the ones who caused him to have that urge to conquer, the one who inflicted the pain, the one who created all the reasons to all his misery, the one who shot those painful words in his being.
There are already lots of stories wherein people got successful because of hearing simple but enlightening words, words that came from those individuals who just commented matter-factly and doesn’t even realized they were the source of that encouragement and determination of that very person to succeed.
One example was of a man who became a successful writer just from the 4 words, “This is good writing.” when he first wrote his paragraph when he was still in grade school. Those words came from his teacher who became his light to strive. A boy who was shy and insecure became a successful man by just hearing the words of appreciation.
Saying something to a child without meaning it doesn’t mean the child also understand that you don’t really meant it. It goes through the heart and stored in the mind which can create pain, hurt and discouragement. Someday, it will be the cause of his disappointment. Then you will say that he is the one who’s making his destiny that it’s his choice what he’ll do with his life, but, you directed him to it. Then you will reason that it’s his fault why he got himself affected by it. The truth is there are no reasons when somebody’s hurt by words. Words have power, it is a double-edged word. It must be something that we ought to think of first before saying. That is why there are terms like tactful and tactless. It is still safe to tell words of encouragement so that a child will have a positive view in his life and do better things.
No matter the child’s behavior, discipline must always be understandably rightful or righteous both to the disciplinarian as well as to the one being disciplined. After all, you don’t want to be the cause of his future failures.
It’s always hurting to accept mistakes especially to the part of the disciplinarian but you don’t want to bounce back all your inflictions to you, do you? The saying, “DO UNTO OTHERS WHAT YOU WANT OTHERS DO UNTO YOU”, still strongly nudge your conscience. You cannot see your own mistakes, much more you cannot accept your visible wrongs maybe because of the fact that you are hypocrite (?) or you just choose to ignore it or maybe you also have experiences that made you into what you are now but refuse to recognize that you are also hurting from the past? If the latter is so, then why let others feel the way you felt before? For revenge? Why to others? Others did not cause the pain you have before, somebody did and that somebody you must forgive for you to move on and will not repeat history. It will be a torture to you if somebody will comment on your discipline because you failed to accept to yourself that you are eventually on the wrong track. It is a shame you can’t face to accept unless you wanted others to see you as wicked one.
You can discipline and still earn respect if you’ll know first what you are about to do without hurting others feelings. Explain well and be patient. Patience is all you’ve got for the others to understand you. Scold and make up. Understand and be reasonable always. Be open-minded and accept faults. Remember that torturing a child physically, emotionally and psychologically means breaking the law and that’s not just it, it also means destroying a child’s dreams and point of view of how wonderful the world is!
