Dear Marcus and Obinna,
I am moved by both your opinions on the subject because it is core to what I do in communities in Uganda. As a practitioner and parent, I always find myself caught up in between.
The conversation about corporal punishment is always shrouded in culture, religion and traditions for most societies. Actually my mum would always recite to me a biblical text "Spare the rod and spoil a child" whenever she was going to discipline me. Our cultures/traditions here in SSA support some form of corporal punishment for the sake of correcting a child. However, they also emphasize that it should be done in a manner that
guarantees the safety and wellbeing of a child. For instance, my motherwould use a fairly weaker cane to spank me or deny me something I loved most whenever I would do wrong. But my biggest fear was the cane, I feared
it so much and in many ways, it kept in check. She perfectly used it sometimes as a scarecrow and it worked (but surprisingly it failed miserably with my young brother).
My biggest problem was the severe spanking in schools which I found to be so cruel, to say the least. Actually it was gross abuse children's rights by those poor teachers who lacked any ounce of understanding how to
discipline children. I nearly dropped out of school.
Fast forward, I now engage with parents and teachers who find caning a quicker and cheaper way to discipline a child. Most stress that "it was because of their beating" that they became responsible persons. However,
they confess that in most cases it's outdated but because they lack effective tools/approaches to use to discipline children and often resort to a cane as the best alternative available. They find some of the western
approaches say "grounding kids or denying them somethings" as non-effective. I must confess I don't know much about the western disciplining model its merits and demerits. Parents here point to the
erosion of some of the social checks and balances in our current society as a result of kids that weren't adequately parented. We're now grappling with pornography, child to child sex, child violence, drug abuse, etc. Some of these have been like drug use have been epidemics in developed countries where children' rights have been core for many years.
Anyways, in my view banning corporal punishment without providing parents and teachers with alternatives to deal with deviant kids may not be the best approach since it pushes them to extremes including total absconding from their cardinal role of preparing better-disciplined adults needed for our future. My sister who is raising teenagers in Sweden has lamented onmany occasions her struggles to raise her kids with the Western parentingmodel (of course it has its advantages, but disadvantages are equally there too especially for non-western kids who fight to keep both worlds).
Respectfully,
*Danny D. Gotto (MD, MPH, MBA)*
*Founder & Executive Director *
*Innovations for Development (I4DEV)*
*http://www.i4dev.or.ug <http://www.i4dev.or.ug>.*
*Email: d.gotto@i4dev.or.ug <d.gotto@i4dev.or.ug>; info@i4dev.or.ug
<info@i4dev.or.ug>; gdanny2000@gmail.com <gdanny2000@gmail.com>. *
*Tel +25670314986; Skype: gotto.danny2*
CHIFA profile: Gotto Danny is Fundraising Manager with Women of
Uganda, Uganda. Professional interests: Danny is a qualified public
health specialist. He is currently the Executive Director of Ugandan
Youth Empowered a non profit organisation that supports youth through
areas of reproductive health and education with a major focus on
youth mothers. He also doubles as a Fundraising Manager for Women of
Uganda Network; This is an NGO that support women through Access4Dev
projects in Uganda so as to achieve sustainable development. He
started his career as an Environmental Health Officer in the Capital
City of Kampala, then completed a Masters in Public Health and for
about five years, Danny has supported various non profit
organisations that support women in areas of health. Danny has
contributed to research in areas of Health systems Financing for
developing countries. gdanny2000 AT gmail.com
