KZN reacts to parents scolding their kids in public
How appropriate is it? Let's dive in...
Navigating parenthood and understanding how to discipline your kids can be very difficult.
Often, the most tricky situations can be in public where tantrums, disagreements, and conflict between the parent and child can occur.
As a parent, there are several ways to deal with this and onlookers can often apply additional pressure as to how a parent should tackle the situation.
In order to better understand how our province feels about this, we asked them: "What are your thoughts on scolding kids in public?"
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As you can imagine, the responses were very diverse, with many believing that the parent should wait for the child to get home before resolving the issue and others believing in a more hard-handed or traditional response.
When we asked Stacey her thoughts are on the situation (for context, Stacey does not have kids of her own but has been a bystander when people have had to scold kids in public), her response was as follows:
As a childless person, I just avoid that isle where the drama is going down. Parents go through the most.
On the contrary, J Sbu is a parent to Zanda and he believes that ideally you shouldn’t be scolding kids in public at all. The ideal way is to handle the situation with your kids in a mature and calm manner, before explaining the situation to them in private.
Life coach, Candice King, who specialises in children and teenagers, shares her insight on how to navigate discipling kids in public below:
In the podcast above, Candice King explains how she thinks that we shouldn't scold kids in public due to the impact it has on them.
"When you scold kids in public, they go to a shameful space. Shame is about 'I am a bad person' as opposed to guilt which is 'I did something bad'.
"Because kids are young, they can't distinguish the difference between 'I am a bad person' or 'my behaviour is bad', so shame drives an intensely painful feeling and experience that drives them to believe that they are flawed and not good enough."
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Repeated experiences can cause negative effects on the child. It is important to communicate and think about the message you are trying to express to the child.
Everyone's reactions are different and there is no "textbook" answer on how to address this issue.
Children learn more from how you react and who you are than what you teach. Remember actions speak louder than words.
What are are your thoughts? Inbox us @StaceyandJSbu on Facebook.
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