last night my husband returned home to find me yet again ranting about parents who hit their children with belts. he entered the house and i turned from cooking dinner to waving my cooking spoon in the air and shouting. the cat, who had been happily sitting at my feet by the stove, ran off and cowered in fear under the living room chair.
after listening for a bit and trying to keep an amused smile off his face (i imagine i really did look like a crazy person) he had a suggestion.
"has it ever occurred to you?" he asked, "that perhaps the solution is for you and your fabulous co-teacher to break into their houses at night and just steal all their belts?"
while this justified being whacked in the head with a kitchen spoon, i've been smiling all night and all morning from the image of me and my co-teacher dressed in black, scaling the side of the brick apartment buildings, stealing all their belts like the grinch stole stockings on christmas eve. avengers of the children. perhaps my husband is on to something. i mean, my co-teacher and i are awesome.
5 comments:
If these child abusers have been reported to the police, are you following up when you see fresh bruises?
Not sure why this isn't pursued more seriously. Do the beaten and brutalized children have to submit in order to be fed? Do these parents really deserve such consideration?
Gotta love the husband, he handled it well. I've had to make calls to Child Protection for similar reasons, and they have never felt the need to investigate the parents. Oddly both times I have called, they want lots of info on me. You would think an unattended 8 yo in charge of a 5 yo in an unheated house would be cause for concern, wouldn't you?
I have no trouble picturing you doing this. Somehow, your co-teacher is a little harder for me to imagine. But, I have faith in the both of you to accomplish anything you want.
There is a vast difference between those who abuse their children and those who discipline their children with love.
Abusers discipline in anger and provide no alternative form of punishment. This is also often joined with verbal, emotional, and mental abuse of the child. If you suspect that this is occurring then you should take action.
However, a person who disciplines their child in love will use a spanking as a last resort. Providing alternative forms of punishment, as well as, sometimes letting the lesson be learned the hard way, (e.g. letting the child get burned for touching the hot stove when told not to - couldn't think of another example). This, along with a loving, nurturing parent child relationship helps to develop respect for authority, positive characteristic traits, and an awareness of consequences for actions in a child.
Spanking your child does not make you an abuser. When done correctly it makes you a parent.
I once had a woman at church explain to me why you should spank your child with a wooden spoon instead of your hand. (Your hand is an instrument of love and you don't want your child to think of your hand as an instrument of punishment.) I got lots of interesting advice from those folks. Not much of which I thought wise....or even godly.
Post a Comment