We live in a punishment-happy world,
where people's response to everything from one child grabbing a toy
from another to serial rapists is some kind of revenge fantasy. Hit
them back, abuse them back, get them back: tit for tat, at its
finest.
This is not functional.
It is dysfunctional, but probably not
how you think it is...
Basic triage of, say, a car accident
with multiple injuries does not
start with finding out who to blame and running them over with a
bigger vehicle to 'teach' them that they made a mistake. First aid is
given in order of the seriousness of the injury, not in order of who
is the least to blame.
When
this protocol is followed for other mistakes and injuries, a kind of
miracle occurs... the perpetrator (whoever is to blame) can see
clearly the result of their error without being distracted from what
happened to defend themselves against an attack from an authority
figure. Or, as a reader put it, in response to my last post:
YES.
And adding extra to the natural reaction following a mistake means
that the natural reaction is metaphorically (or literally) shouted
over and the additional extra becomes the focus of the child's
attention. Thereby muffling the natural learning reaction.
One instance where this was
really clear to me was when our elder daughter locked the keys in the
car, just as we were about to leave my grandparents' house to come
home from a camping trip. She came into their house, her face white
in horror, and cried as she blurted out what had happened. Her dad
started shouting at her and I stopped him: 'she already clearly feels
terrible, what are you shouting for? It won't get the keys out of the
car...'
Punishment doesn't solve
problems. Punishment doesn't 'teach' people to notice the results of
their behaviour, or even to feel bad about what they did. Punishment
shows people that the authority is not on their side, and will
gleefully add to how bad they already feel about themselves and their
actions.
Punishment teaches people to
evade blame and to argue against the authority's assertion that their
action was intentional or malicious, in order to avoid feeling worse
than they already do about the mistake. Punishment takes people's
minds off the results and focuses their attention on protecting
themselves from an attack...
... exactly the opposite of
'teaching' them to take responsibility for their actions.
Focusing on the victim
first, treating the injury and helping restore their sense of safety,
gives the perpetrator an unobstructed view of the results of their
action and space to think for themselves about what they really
wanted to achieve. It helps them save face while also giving them
time to take calm down and take in new information... the conditions
necessary to learn anything.
