Rotans being sold in malls, my 8 y.o. didn’t know what it is. Are you for or against corporal punishment?
I brought my child out and about recently and we passed by a shop selling these rotans outside, and my child asked me daddy what is that?
It seems like kids these days don’t know what these rotans are, given the fact that more and more children are not caned for misbehaving nowadays, compared to our time when our parents would just whip out the cane if we didn’t listen to them.
And it wasn’t just at home, we used to be caned on our hands by the teachers if we misbehaved in school or didn’t do our homework, and there was nothing wrong with it. But times have indeed changed.
You know what they say, spare the rod and spoil the child. and we were given the “rod” so many times that we grew up just fine, we were punished and caned onto the right path as children.
FYI, I’m against corporal punishment as I was beaten like heck as a kid XD.
Netizens’ comments
- Nope, why stop at corporal? Not even major, captain or sergeant punishment, let’s go straight to general punishment and mete it out to everyone!! /s
Just kidding. I was at the receiving end of those as a kid, but folks used it more as a threat than actual punishment. At most, I was locked up in the toilet. It doesn’t excuse using it on kids. If kids learn from our example, what are they learning when we use violence on them?
By the way, I know that shop. Sells all sorts of goodies from days gone by. Good stuff. - I am against corporal punishment except when the situation warrants it.
the problem is when parents get angry .. their emotions run high and can unleash a tirate of rottan swinging that causes more harm than good. This is clearly child abuse, and it is often difficult to draw the line between the two.
The only time I wacked my child was when he hit another child so hard that guy had a nose bleed. But before I did it, I had to find out the circumstances that led to it.
Apparently, this child had been annoying him for some time. On that day .. he could not take it any more and took a swing at the fella, and scored an ace.
I told him that what the other boy did was wrong, but what he did was also wrong, and two wrongs don’t make a right. I also counselled him that should someone annoy, threaten, him, he should let me and the teacher know. I explained to him that violence will only lead to more violence. I also offered to let him attend martial arts classes to defend himself if someone attacked him.
In the end, I explained to him that I still had to punish him so that he would remember. I asked him to show me his hand, and I whacked it with a ruler.
It hurt me more than it would have hurt him. He did not want to take martial arts classes. He was only 5yo at that time. That was the only time I whacked my son.
Today .. he is a loving son, and I am proud of him. He still remembers what I told him that day. - I was ever only canned once in my life, and it happened in school.
The school I attended had a disciplinary teacher. Besides the headmaster, he was the most feared among the students. It was never a good thing if you were told to go see him.
Well, on the fateful day, my class teacher asked me to go see him to pass on something to him .. and I faithful fulfil my instructions.
when I arrived, there was a line of students waiting to see him … and he had a cane in his hand … and he gave the person at the head of the queue a stroke of the rottan.
when it came to my turn, he just did that without asking or saying anything. After receiving the punishment that resulted in me sitting in a very odd way for a day or two, I told him that I was asked to pass on that thing to him by my class teacher.
He looked horrified, and he was speechless. I thanked him and scooted back to class.
recently, me in my sixties and he would have been in his eighties, met at an old boys’ reunion. He gave gave me a hug and apologised for what he had done to me.
Apparently, that corporal punishment taught him an invaluable lesson too, and he remembered me for .. Well.. the rest of his life .. lol!