Interpreting Words
On the issue of spanking, “to spank or not to spank”, is not the question. The question is which rod to use.
In the Bible, where the quote originated, there are two interpretations. One rod can be used as a stick to hit with- a rod of punishment.
The other rod is a rod to measure/evaluate with, for example, the characteristics or growth of a child based on a set of rules and is meant to promote good progress, behavior, and attitudes with discipline in place of punishment.
If the rod is a stick to hit with, it is used to punish for doing something “wrong”. Punishment is a negative and not only is not effective but leads to other numerous negative behaviors in the home including child abuse and sibling abuse, which further leads to dysfunctional families and violence. According to Bertrand Russell, historian, when a mother spanks her child, she takes the first step in preparing him for war.
It seems obvious that as a culture we in the United States adopted the rod as a stick to hit with and felt justified and guilt free as we spanked our children in school, at home and anywhere in-between depending on their behavior. As a culture we bought into that belief that a good slap across the buttocks or a razor strap, or switch off the tree was almost Biblical.
Not all cultures accepted that choice, Sweden has even gone so far to make spanking a child illegal
Discipline is a positive. It is a rod of rules to protect a child not only from bad behavior but from an overload of all things, including information. Discipline supports a child until self discipline is learned. It enables focus. The rod is used to measure progress, it leads to discipline. The road is positive. It has a set . rules but the purpose is for discipline. Discipline protects a child not only from his own behave/promotes focus or but from an overload of all things, including information and cell phones. Discipline supports a child until self-discipline is learned. It enables
Proverbs 34:13 reads: “He who spares his rod hates his son. But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” It doesn’t say “hits” or “punishes”, it says “disciplines.” Webster’s defines discipline as “training that produces self control.”
“Spare the Rod and spoil the child” isn’t an adage for punishment it is a counsel against excess. For example, in our overweight, Western culture, we sometimes look to Japan and tout their excellent diet. We even simplistically attribute their good health to green tea. In reality, the long life and lack of obesity can be attributed more to habits learned through discipline than to diet.
7th Grade in Japan is the year discipline begins to be stressed. Students are taught to “endure”. They are taught when to eat (3 times a day) and when not to eat (while walking, talking, and standing).
“Americans think they can do anything and everything they want”, one Japanese teacher said, but we teach our students they can choose anything, but can only do one of those things.”
There is a price to pay for limiting a student’s potential, but there is also a price to pay if life is lived with too many excesses and little discipline and painful beatings when a child doesn’t resist temptation from a culture around it that thrives on temptation.
Interpreting the Rod as a measurement stick to avoid excess and develop discipline is not popular in Western instant society. It takes time. It is much faster to hit a kid than to sit down and “talk” with him, as the Amish say. It is much easier to get angry and throw him out of the classroom when he is an underachiever…punish him…than it is to sit down and refuse to let him fail.
We expect quick results in our instant society, so we pick up the Rod and hit. Today, hitting each other or our spouses is beginning to be recognized as abuse, but hitting a vulnerable child is still seen as “our right”.
In the 1980’s the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta termed violence a disease of epidemic proportions in our society, and yet we have groups such as the Buddhists, the Amish, the Anabaptists, and the Mennonites who teach and practice nonviolence and forgiveness and substitute discipline for punishment. They have a different interpretation of the Teachings.
Does spanking work? Should we have a law against spanking as Sweden does? If we did, we would probably have a kinder, gentler society and fewer dysfunctional families and less domestic abuse as our boys grow into men. But that alone would not change our obesity, for example, or protect our environment from overuse. Most of us were spanked soundly and put to bed yet we, as individuals and as a nation, still overindulge and live in excess in just about everything.
While living and teaching in Japanese schools with two young children to raise as they attended Japanese elementary and junior high schools, I started to notice that there was little punishment in Japan. People weren’t yelling at each other for making a mistake. Brothers and sisters were hugging not hitting each other. So, for a classroom topic of conversation I asked my student, an older gentleman and president of a company how he was punished when he was a little boy.
It was an easy question, and I expected a quick answer, but it turned into a long frustrating lesson until I realized that it wasn’t the word, he didn’t understand, it was the concept he didn’t understand. So, I asked, “When you were a little boy did you ever do anything wrong? Bad? Make a mistake?
“Of course”.
“What was the worst thing you ever did?”
“I took a knife and carved into the very valuable piece of wood in my Grandfather’s Tokonomo (a special area in a house that houses the artwork, flower arranging and is the center piece of the Japanese home.
No! What did he do? Did he punish you? Did he hit you? Spank you?
He seemed shocked. “No, of course not.”
“What did he do?”
“He talked to me.”
“Talked to you? Just talked?”
“Yes”.
“It must have been some lecture. What did he say?”
“He said that I shouldn’t do such things because the sun will see me.”
I was stunned. I had no words. I actually became a little angry. I had so many lickings in my life, not to mention pounding on and being hit by older siblings and all he had was “Be careful, the Sun will see you?” It was so unfair. I almost cried out of self-pity.
We were taught that spanking and punishment would change behavior. But spanking really is neither here nor there in the positive scheme of life. It is, instead, the discipline that we carry with us, not to mention the anger, pain and hurt that we carry with us.
I asked another student, a father of two boys, how he disciplines his family. He too “talked” to them with ultimatums and “in a low voice.”
Would he spank them?
“No. I would never spank my sons. It would hurt too much on their young bodies. It would cause too much pain for all of us. Pain for their bodies and pain for my spirit and heart.
I interviewed people as I did pilgrimages. The responses were very interesting when it came to America and our addition to violence and war. I heard we were too quick to judge, everything was black or white, no space in our thinking and most interestingly, we complain too much. Complain, complain, complain and that leads to negativity and anger.
Fast forward to the Corona Virus and another question where not only the disease of violence is still with us, but a new plague came upon us with quick reactions and according to many, over reactions. It was the root of the following question from a young lady who heads up an international company. “What if we reacted to violence like we reacted to the corona virus. What if, when someone hits his wife, for instance, we put him in some type of quarantine where he had to be talked to, or go see him employer, or let those around him know of his problem, making it unacceptable rather than accepting it as “natural”. Have entire communities have the power to become involved in some way.
We need to do something as a society if we are to mature into what we can be – I think reinterpreting some of our words may be a place to start.
###
In the Bible, where the quote originated, there are two interpretations. One rod can be used as a stick to hit with- a rod of punishment.
The other rod is a rod to measure/evaluate with, for example, the characteristics or growth of a child based on a set of rules and is meant to promote good progress, behavior, and attitudes with discipline in place of punishment.
If the rod is a stick to hit with, it is used to punish for doing something “wrong”. Punishment is a negative and not only is not effective but leads to other numerous negative behaviors in the home including child abuse and sibling abuse, which further leads to dysfunctional families and violence. According to Bertrand Russell, historian, when a mother spanks her child, she takes the first step in preparing him for war.
It seems obvious that as a culture we in the United States adopted the rod as a stick to hit with and felt justified and guilt free as we spanked our children in school, at home and anywhere in-between depending on their behavior. As a culture we bought into that belief that a good slap across the buttocks or a razor strap, or switch off the tree was almost Biblical.
Not all cultures accepted that choice, Sweden has even gone so far to make spanking a child illegal
Discipline is a positive. It is a rod of rules to protect a child not only from bad behavior but from an overload of all things, including information. Discipline supports a child until self discipline is learned. It enables focus. The rod is used to measure progress, it leads to discipline. The road is positive. It has a set . rules but the purpose is for discipline. Discipline protects a child not only from his own behave/promotes focus or but from an overload of all things, including information and cell phones. Discipline supports a child until self-discipline is learned. It enables
Proverbs 34:13 reads: “He who spares his rod hates his son. But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” It doesn’t say “hits” or “punishes”, it says “disciplines.” Webster’s defines discipline as “training that produces self control.”
“Spare the Rod and spoil the child” isn’t an adage for punishment it is a counsel against excess. For example, in our overweight, Western culture, we sometimes look to Japan and tout their excellent diet. We even simplistically attribute their good health to green tea. In reality, the long life and lack of obesity can be attributed more to habits learned through discipline than to diet.
7th Grade in Japan is the year discipline begins to be stressed. Students are taught to “endure”. They are taught when to eat (3 times a day) and when not to eat (while walking, talking, and standing).
“Americans think they can do anything and everything they want”, one Japanese teacher said, but we teach our students they can choose anything, but can only do one of those things.”
There is a price to pay for limiting a student’s potential, but there is also a price to pay if life is lived with too many excesses and little discipline and painful beatings when a child doesn’t resist temptation from a culture around it that thrives on temptation.
Interpreting the Rod as a measurement stick to avoid excess and develop discipline is not popular in Western instant society. It takes time. It is much faster to hit a kid than to sit down and “talk” with him, as the Amish say. It is much easier to get angry and throw him out of the classroom when he is an underachiever…punish him…than it is to sit down and refuse to let him fail.
We expect quick results in our instant society, so we pick up the Rod and hit. Today, hitting each other or our spouses is beginning to be recognized as abuse, but hitting a vulnerable child is still seen as “our right”.
In the 1980’s the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta termed violence a disease of epidemic proportions in our society, and yet we have groups such as the Buddhists, the Amish, the Anabaptists, and the Mennonites who teach and practice nonviolence and forgiveness and substitute discipline for punishment. They have a different interpretation of the Teachings.
Does spanking work? Should we have a law against spanking as Sweden does? If we did, we would probably have a kinder, gentler society and fewer dysfunctional families and less domestic abuse as our boys grow into men. But that alone would not change our obesity, for example, or protect our environment from overuse. Most of us were spanked soundly and put to bed yet we, as individuals and as a nation, still overindulge and live in excess in just about everything.
While living and teaching in Japanese schools with two young children to raise as they attended Japanese elementary and junior high schools, I started to notice that there was little punishment in Japan. People weren’t yelling at each other for making a mistake. Brothers and sisters were hugging not hitting each other. So, for a classroom topic of conversation I asked my student, an older gentleman and president of a company how he was punished when he was a little boy.
It was an easy question, and I expected a quick answer, but it turned into a long frustrating lesson until I realized that it wasn’t the word, he didn’t understand, it was the concept he didn’t understand. So, I asked, “When you were a little boy did you ever do anything wrong? Bad? Make a mistake?
“Of course”.
“What was the worst thing you ever did?”
“I took a knife and carved into the very valuable piece of wood in my Grandfather’s Tokonomo (a special area in a house that houses the artwork, flower arranging and is the center piece of the Japanese home.
No! What did he do? Did he punish you? Did he hit you? Spank you?
He seemed shocked. “No, of course not.”
“What did he do?”
“He talked to me.”
“Talked to you? Just talked?”
“Yes”.
“It must have been some lecture. What did he say?”
“He said that I shouldn’t do such things because the sun will see me.”
I was stunned. I had no words. I actually became a little angry. I had so many lickings in my life, not to mention pounding on and being hit by older siblings and all he had was “Be careful, the Sun will see you?” It was so unfair. I almost cried out of self-pity.
We were taught that spanking and punishment would change behavior. But spanking really is neither here nor there in the positive scheme of life. It is, instead, the discipline that we carry with us, not to mention the anger, pain and hurt that we carry with us.
I asked another student, a father of two boys, how he disciplines his family. He too “talked” to them with ultimatums and “in a low voice.”
Would he spank them?
“No. I would never spank my sons. It would hurt too much on their young bodies. It would cause too much pain for all of us. Pain for their bodies and pain for my spirit and heart.
I interviewed people as I did pilgrimages. The responses were very interesting when it came to America and our addition to violence and war. I heard we were too quick to judge, everything was black or white, no space in our thinking and most interestingly, we complain too much. Complain, complain, complain and that leads to negativity and anger.
Fast forward to the Corona Virus and another question where not only the disease of violence is still with us, but a new plague came upon us with quick reactions and according to many, over reactions. It was the root of the following question from a young lady who heads up an international company. “What if we reacted to violence like we reacted to the corona virus. What if, when someone hits his wife, for instance, we put him in some type of quarantine where he had to be talked to, or go see him employer, or let those around him know of his problem, making it unacceptable rather than accepting it as “natural”. Have entire communities have the power to become involved in some way.
We need to do something as a society if we are to mature into what we can be – I think reinterpreting some of our words may be a place to start.
###
