Although I agree that it is already way down the slippery slope of 'going too far', I also try to imagine how I would feel if my child purposely banged their head into corners / surfaces resulting in damage to the skull (example given in article, where the crib is padded to stop damage to child).
Firstly, I am not a parent, though I do teach children from the age of 4 upwards, and have never felt like harming myself, so I do not have as much personal experience with this subject as some of the posts above. But I have read all the above before writing this.
With that in mind, the child is already in pain and in danger of seriously injuring themself, so I would see small shocks as a lesser evil. This is assuming that other options had been tried and had failed (what other options are there?) The parent had already padded the crib, and I am assuming that when they got older they did remove low tables etc so that there were no easily accessable corner / hard objects to head-bang. Is the answer just a bigger padded crib if nothing else works? For the rest of their lives?
When I was younger I had very bad eczema on the backs of my knees, elbows and wrists, and on the tips of my fingers. I didn't really scratch much when I was awake, but every morning I would wake up with blood everywhere as I scratched myself raw nearly every night in my sleep. My mum, a chilren's nurse at the county hospital for 20 years at the time, eventually made me make fists, then put my fists into socks which were then taped on. Unfortunately I found that the friction from the sock worked as well as my hands, but as my fingers got better I realised that the raw pain would actually go away if I left it alone all the time, and then I would be in less of a habit to scratch while I was asleep.
If I did this to my kids (which I don't have) today, I would worry about getting done for abuse or the like. However, I stopped getting eczema about the age of 8. 16 years later it has started coming back, and although I have gotten rid of it, it was so hard, that I actually decided that each time I scratched a certain area, I would watch no TV, read, or use the computer (non work related) for a day. It's still very hard, but there was no way I could have done it even 6 years ago.
Anyway, what my mum did worked and I see it as not a very nice thing to do, but the lesser of two evils, and actually feel grateful for it (though I didn't at the time!). This is how I feel with the case of the head-banging. This child has a very very good chance of seriously injuring themselves. So althought, as some of you have noted, there may be side effects taht we can't see yet, I would see it as an acceptable treatment.
In the case of swearing or being unkempt, they can F-OFF! But then if Child A always swears profusely before attacking someone, it may stop them before an attack, or just teach them to shut up and surprise their victim. So perhaps the 'watchers' could not the outburst, use less harsh ways to calm them down, but be ready with the shocks in case they do suddenly attack someone. This way they see the shock being related to teh attack, not to the outburst (which isn't going to harm anyone).
I say this, because when I am teaching someone (adult!), and they constantly pull their arm back before hitting me, I spot this hit them first. I do this not to stop them hitting me, but so that they learn that pulling their arm back first just gets them hit. They very soon stop doing it, and do their attack correctly, and I don't hit them. So I use the same method to stop the first action, not to stop the result. Make sense?
So, to conclude, where what they do to themselves or someone else is worse than a little shock, I say yes. For when they are just being an inconvenience/unruley/noisey etc, I say no.
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branchandroot
Sorry, it's rather long ....
Date: 2006-10-12 02:50 pm (UTC)Firstly, I am not a parent, though I do teach children from the age of 4 upwards, and have never felt like harming myself, so I do not have as much personal experience with this subject as some of the posts above. But I have read all the above before writing this.
With that in mind, the child is already in pain and in danger of seriously injuring themself, so I would see small shocks as a lesser evil. This is assuming that other options had been tried and had failed (what other options are there?) The parent had already padded the crib, and I am assuming that when they got older they did remove low tables etc so that there were no easily accessable corner / hard objects to head-bang. Is the answer just a bigger padded crib if nothing else works? For the rest of their lives?
When I was younger I had very bad eczema on the backs of my knees, elbows and wrists, and on the tips of my fingers. I didn't really scratch much when I was awake, but every morning I would wake up with blood everywhere as I scratched myself raw nearly every night in my sleep. My mum, a chilren's nurse at the county hospital for 20 years at the time, eventually made me make fists, then put my fists into socks which were then taped on. Unfortunately I found that the friction from the sock worked as well as my hands, but as my fingers got better I realised that the raw pain would actually go away if I left it alone all the time, and then I would be in less of a habit to scratch while I was asleep.
If I did this to my kids (which I don't have) today, I would worry about getting done for abuse or the like. However, I stopped getting eczema about the age of 8. 16 years later it has started coming back, and although I have gotten rid of it, it was so hard, that I actually decided that each time I scratched a certain area, I would watch no TV, read, or use the computer (non work related) for a day. It's still very hard, but there was no way I could have done it even 6 years ago.
Anyway, what my mum did worked and I see it as not a very nice thing to do, but the lesser of two evils, and actually feel grateful for it (though I didn't at the time!). This is how I feel with the case of the head-banging. This child has a very very good chance of seriously injuring themselves. So althought, as some of you have noted, there may be side effects taht we can't see yet, I would see it as an acceptable treatment.
In the case of swearing or being unkempt, they can F-OFF! But then if Child A always swears profusely before attacking someone, it may stop them before an attack, or just teach them to shut up and surprise their victim. So perhaps the 'watchers' could not the outburst, use less harsh ways to calm them down, but be ready with the shocks in case they do suddenly attack someone. This way they see the shock being related to teh attack, not to the outburst (which isn't going to harm anyone).
I say this, because when I am teaching someone (adult!), and they constantly pull their arm back before hitting me, I spot this hit them first. I do this not to stop them hitting me, but so that they learn that pulling their arm back first just gets them hit. They very soon stop doing it, and do their attack correctly, and I don't hit them. So I use the same method to stop the first action, not to stop the result. Make sense?
So, to conclude, where what they do to themselves or someone else is worse than a little shock, I say yes. For when they are just being an inconvenience/unruley/noisey etc, I say no.