Never hit or force your children

It never occurred to me that listening to the radio while driving can be dangerous…But I almost crashed the other day when I heard about the new scientific research and what it tells us to do. It said we should “slam” our kids every now and then, it is supposed to be “good for their development”. At the instant when I realized what was said… I lost my direction of where I was going (joke, but it very much impacted me in this way). Shortly after that, I thought to myself: “who listens to what some people say on the radio?!” …but I was wrong. The same “scientific” suggestion was all over the place that same day, and was broadcasted through all media, the internet, you name it. And it caught me unaware once more, making me spill my food on me while I was eating (no joke this time).

For the rest of the day I was confronted with the following picture… parents getting comfortable with the idea of slamming their children, “every now and then” just because it was promoted by the “new scientific research…”

I could save the following statement for last, but I can’t wait to tell it. My own scientific research comes up with a slightly different conclusion. Slamming around “your” children can be dangerous (and unforgettable) because you never know who you’re gonna bump into while doing so…  

Universal rule… which is going far above any “scientific research of the week”, you do not hit a child for any reason at all. Violence is no education, it’s no good for their development and in fact it’s only bad for them. And I can explain why: There is no such thing as controlled hitting or controlled violence, which is addressed to a boy or a girl. Once you raise your hand against a child (especially “your own”) it becomes a reaction habit “of the hand”. It is a “habit” that you can start with a first “innocent” slap, which is very hard to call back, once you take that path. This is not a matter to dispute or argue about, and it upsets me a lot that this brainless “scientific research” was all over the place for parents to follow.
Hitting a child is the total lack of communication between parent and offspring.  Further more it cultivates feelings like fear, mistrust and hate. And any communications failure has little, or nothing, to do with children themselves. We as parents are one hundred percent responsible for it… Those who slam their children are coward, because “the slamming around” business miraculously stops at the age when parents disagree with their children to the very extreme… This is clearly not out of a sudden respect, but out of fear that the “child” has grown in size, and now it intends to instinctively fight back on this… 
So, keep your hands down and save that sort of energy for a real threatening situation against someone of your own size… 

Why it is that we know best…    
In Aikido, but as well in all well put Martial Arts, there are many “stages” of practice. Techniques should always be practiced in a soft studying manner, while we are being extremely attentive. After that, fast application is as well a necessity, but one needs to stay away from injuring his partner in practice. But one of the “final” refinements, in cultivating techniques, can take place only between a Master and his Apprentice, and it is as follows: As soon as there is engagement, any defense which is left open, is dealt with a blow. The impact is done at the precise opening, and it has a controlled force of causing no injury, but one is to “remember” it without using his memory for a few days… It takes tremendous skill and self-control in order to perform this correctly, on all levels, physically, mentally and spiritually. And it is only for those practitioners who have eliminated most flaws from their technique with “regular” practice… It also requires that the practitioner is, sort of, “volunteering” for the task. Because Politeness is a classic Samurai virtue, a student can always “call off” the engagement, if he finds it too uncomfortable. All he has to do, according to Japanese Tradition, is to step back one step, and stay bowed without moving or speaking, until relieved.

This stage of training is the only “hitting, slamming or forcing” which is permitted and acceptable between two human beings and could be “good for your development”. And still, this training is unsuitable for children, that by the way could not be advanced practitioners in any case…  

Now here comes the part related to our theme!     
People who have been physically punished by their parents, have a hard time to undergo this part of training… They discover for themselves (…not without surprise) that they automatically act with a spastic panic motion. And this “uninvited” reaction comes at the exact moment when they should have been pressing on, deliberately ignoring the oncoming “corrector blow”. Nothing could frustrate more a person who is definitely a dedicated practitioner, and there isn’t even one of them, who do not comprehend from where this unwilling “coward act” is coming from… Instantly they realize, that these are “remains” which are rooted deep in their past. And this realization makes them only more determined in order to eliminate and totally overcome their fear. Now how can one tell this without spoiling the sincerity of the moment?! I guess the straight forward way… Some apprentice go as far as making the decision of diving into the oncoming wooden sword attack, deliberately lowering their defenses, in order to extinguish the last spark of that hidden fear… Not a “wise” decision that I would recommend, but on the other hand in my “line of work” I have never seen any kind of “talk treatment” to rise above action…

Martial Arts are for those who are determined to learn how to take care of themselves from an unprovoked, violent physical attack… “Attack” is actually a war term. Its nature is usually random, unfair, harsh… and, in many occasions, it is intended to lead to “destructive death”. Any attack, no matter how great (press the doomsday button) or small (person to person physical force) requires the mental and physical will in order to be executed. An “attack mode” is triggered from the same synapses of the brain regardless of the size of damage intending to cause. Furthermore it is connected with emotions like anger and it is a reaction just like a “bad habit”. It is hard to be controlled…

I will not tire to keep repeating the following: Classical Martial Arts and especially Aikido, when taught correctly, are all about control… One can do other things in order to feel excitement, to have an adrenaline rush or to “train” in order to defuse his suppressed emotions at the end of a difficult day. There are countless forms of actions around us from which one can choose his “Dr. Feelgood”…With the sole concern that this will not harm “others” and will not violate any laws, display of emotional extremities and cultivation of aggression is approved, deepened and systematically repeated. The fact that it violates the personality of a person which acts in this manner is conveniently overlooked… If we were back in the ‘70s I would use the words “we need to find actions which balance our personalities” but I guess that kind of phrases aren’t “in” any more. So let’s have it nowadays said: “Regarding emotional control, we need to pull our act together”. Raising a child is not without challenges. And it takes a considerable amount of control in order to face the difficulties of handling its behavior. But “attacking” it in any way, means having lost our control as grownup persons… It’s nothing more and nothing less…

A child has only its parents (or those who are responsible for it) in order to turn to. Hitting and using force on it, is actually a form of attack against it. A child runs to its parents, because it instinctively understands that it will be protected and defended against anything hostile… furthermore it understands that it will learn from us. Hitting it in any way compromises this natural trust and scars its personality…

Until now I thought that we needed to protect children from behaviors like that, which are caused by ignorance and stupidity on behalf of the parents. But it totally escaped me that we have also to protect them from “scientific researches” which encourage violence over them…

April 14, 2010