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by Aryadasa Ratnasinghe

Today, most parents complain that their children, specially boys, do not listen to them attentively whenever advised, are very boisterous, recalcitrant, rebellious and are averse to discipline. A father once told me that his son was a good lad when he was small, but now in his teens, he very often does not listen to reason. He says that my ideas are old-fashioned and that I am trying to pour old wine into new bottles.

This position prevails in most homes and the parents are at a dilemma as to how they could discipline their children to listen to parental advice. In fact, all parents do well with their children when they are small, but run into real confusion when they grow up, precisely because they prefer to exercise their freedom, without being dominated by their parents or elders. Teenage is a latent period for boys and girls alike, and the parents who have gone through the mill, must understand the emotional feelings of their children.

We all know that teenage (from 13 to 19 years of age) is the subtle bloom of youth with concealed emotional feelings, usually dormant by nature, but capable of development with the passage of years. It is during this period that most children are liable to go on the wrong path, unless they are checked in time by parents before being too late.

Over-permissiveness at home is mostly the reason for a child to have his own way, without being concerned in what they have in store for them. In a family where there is only one child, specially a son, the position becomes worse, than with more children, because he is too much pampered by the parents, from his childhood days. Such a child is liable for temper tantrums and sometimes becomes boisterous. So is the saying "eka yaka" (one devil). This surprising result of freedom have led such children to be tense and anxious.

There is a saying that "whatever parents give their children with good intentions and, at the same time, set them a bad example, is similar to giving food in one hand and poison in the other". This means that the parents must know how to bring up their children, in the best possible manner, without allowing them to go astray and unguided.

Very often children from respectable and cultured families go on the wrong path due to their association with bad companions who indulge in vice and immoral behaviour.

Those who are addicted to various drugs, easily trap their friends to the bad habit and ruin their lives. Therefore, unless the parents are vigilant as with whom their children keep company, there is always the danger of geting spoilt. Unless there is good discipline at home, children become incorrigible in their behaviour pattern.

The home should be to the children the most attractive place in the world, and the presence of the mother should be the greatest asset.

In the good old days, in every home and school, discipline was stern and punishment severe. Home discipline was either too strict or too lenient or virtually non-existent, depending on the attitude of parents towards their children. The optimistic view of punishment was "Spare the rod and spoil the child". Later pessimistic view was "Rod is an uncivilised anachronism". It has now been discovered that to let a child run on his own impulses does more harm than good.

If we always let a child to be dominated buy his wishes from his early days, he will form bad habits and attitudes that will make it impossible for him to adjust himself in later years. He will be come selfish in his own ways, so wilful, so dominant, so arrogant and so much lacking in manners, that others will not like him. In his resentment at being unable to get along with others, he may break the laws which society has created for its protection and, finally, land in jail.

It is easy for a child to form bad habits, but difficult for him to give them up, because human mind is always vicious portending evil. Apart from definite genetic conditions, the early up-bringing of children is largely centred on the atmosphere at home.

This is more significant than any other single influence in determining whether a child would be able to develop his mental faculty and emotional normalcy and make a worthy contribution to society.

What is most lacking today, as regards discipline is concerned, either at home or at school, is that children are not lured to listen to reason and follow the advice of their parents or elders. Discipline can be a pleasant task to many parents who are able to guide their children to become matured happy adults.

To discipline a child is not to punish him for stepping out of line, but to teach him the way he ought to go. Discipline, therefore, includes everything that parents do to help their children to be obedient. It is the challenge and the privilege in training children to become good citizens.

A child learns discipline first from the mother and then from the father until he attends school. Once he attends school, he learns it from his teachers. During the school years, he gradually relinquishes complete control of subordination which eventually leads to in indiscipline.

Sometimes there may be no attempt at discipline whatever. Of all forms of neglect, moral neglect is the most dangerous. Physical neglect may be more visible to the eye and more tangible to cope with, but less harmful. The most frequent of all and most disastrous is the union of licence and severity, within the same home, and the most capricious parent.

Of all the features of the vicious home, the commonest and the most remarkable is drunkenness on the part of the father, who comes home, late into the night, thoroughly drunk, and blatantly upbraids his innocent wife on some pretext not worth the salt. The children, who witness this terrible scene, become disgusted of the father through their love for the mother.

This is common in homes of lower social levels, and the lack of sobriety is no unusual failing. Such behaviour has a profound impact upon the girls more than among the boys. Under such circumstances, how to maintain discipline at home has no empirical solution.

For the impressionable years of childhood, a drunkard's home is a hell on earth, and is one of the serious drawbacks to maintain discipline as the worst conceivable. Money is squandered, health and discipline are neglected, family is despised by the neighbours, and a perpetual life of discord, irregularity and passion is created and sustained. It is common in most of these homes that the parents abuse and maltreat both their children and each other.

Indecency of speech and behaviour becomes rife, and the violence, whether my word, act or feeling, is apt to induce a deep-seated revulsion in the minds of the growing boys and girls undergoing the ordeal.

In trying to discipline children, it has been pointed out that excessive severity with delicate children, by way of corporal punishment, should, in general, be dispensed with.

It seldom corrects misconduct and, by aggravating ill-health and implanting a sense of injustice, may even make indiscipline worse than otherwise. Modern methods of discipline seek to develop and internal self-control, rather than to impose restriction and authority from without.

For the sensitive and depressed, the ideal discipline is no discipline at all. The best form of control is what is exercised by the child himself. The real precipitating cause of indiscipline has been the injudicious efforts made to rule the child by threats and even by corporal punishment. Such efforts lead, as we shall perceive, only to further repression, and to repress a child is simply to prepare the ground for some neurotic growth. All forms of intimidation should be dropped and never use menaces and feints.

With the unrepressed type, the problem of discipline is more perplexing still. Often by a strange perversity of human nature, the unrestrained aggressiveness is itself a reaction against restraint, and no sooner is the restraint lifted, their aggressive behaviour ceases. For children the best place is the school, provided the teachers are bent on maintaining discipline in the classroom and teach them what actually discipline means.

Most children are averse to discipline because they have not been trained so at home. Followed by their coefficients, the following conditions have an impact on discipline. (i) Defective discipline. (ii) Specific instincts. (iii) General emotional instability. (iv) Morbid emotional conditions, mild rather than grave, generated by complexes. (v) Family history of vice or crime. (vi) Intellectual disabilities, such as backwardness or dullness, (vii) Detrimental interests of passionate nature. (viii) Development conditions, such as adolescence or precocity in growth. (ix) Bad companions. (x) Defective family relationship such as the absence of a father and the presence of a stepmother.

To discipline grown-up children is a hard task because they think that they are being robbed of their freedom of choice and liberty. Most parents fail in their attempt to enforce discipline at the improper age. The younger generation of today do not like discipline or anyone interfering with their independence. When a boy wants to get married to a girl of his choice, he is determined to achieve his objective, though the parents dislike their union.

The lovers are not concerned with discipline of obtaining the consent of their parents. The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them. Their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe in. An earnest and often violent condemnation of modern parents has gone out through the press, radio and television and also the pulpit.

The awkward position is that parents do not care for what their children do out of home, and the position is worse with the teenagers than those who are below the age limits. For some parents it makes little difference to them of what happens to their children.

This situation is seen among uneducated parents and those who are less concerned of their children.

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