Should We Sugarcoat Punishment to Curb Aggression in Children?

N. Raghuraman Management Guru

We all must have heard in our childhood that ‘Stand on the bench.’ This was a common punishment. It was a little stricter than this, ‘Stand outside the class.’ Especially, when we used to trouble the teacher of that period a lot. The second punishment would be worse when you were standing outside the class and the principal came round. When I received such punishment, I had to hide in the toilet twice.

The third and worst punishment, which I always feared, was ‘meet in the principal’s room after class’. I never wanted such a punishment, because the principal knew my dad and had a phone on his table. He would always threaten to call dad’s office. That day when I returned home I would not talk about the punishment and would overact. Because of this, mother would get upset and eventually she would ask, ‘Did you get any punishment in class today?’

Sometimes I would refuse, which she would ignore and sometimes I would agree, but would take a promise from her that she would not tell dad. Gradually these punishments changed to ‘A Note to Parents’. In this, the student had to get signatures of the parents, or it was written that ‘bring father along tomorrow.’ I saw all this till my daughter passed out from school.

However, unlike his father he was never punished. She was intelligent like her mother. After this I did not know what the punishments in schools were like until I went to America. Some schools there have rooms that are twice as big as the closets and they call them different names. They send the kids to that room behind the school administrator’s cabin and call that place the ‘work down room’.

Some call it ‘chill room’ and some call it ‘reset space’ or ‘self-management room’. While some strict schools call it ‘regulation station’. If parents question this isolation punishment, schools explain to them that it is a ‘thinking room’ – a term that prevents parents from thinking deeply.

Interestingly, parents now have access to 45 different words that are used by schools across the country. They use words like ‘wellness’, ‘self support’, ‘focus’ and ‘mindfulness’. While parents are wondering how such words can be used, when this place is as small and even scary as a cupboard, a child removed from class for misbehaving is kept there.

During my trip I spent a lot of time around Harvard University, which is in the state of Massachusetts. Schools in this state are not required to tell parents when their child has been placed in a ‘timeout room’.

This practice continues even today, despite parents insisting that it causes deep trauma to children. Many times children even defecate out of fear, only then the parents come to know about the punishment. A local TV news story reported that a 5-year-old autistic boy was struggling to get out of the room during his 28-minute punishment.

This matter had become a big topic of discussion among parents. When a mother named Micah Camille searched the records of her 8-year-old son, there were notes of poor attendance and hyperactivity disorder. The shocking thing was that it also mentioned sending the child to the ‘timeout room’ twice. Now she blames the school for her son’s angry behaviour. Many parents say that this is jail.

The bottom line is that The young generation is becoming very sensitive and short-tempered on small matters, so schools will have to think again about punishment. Presenting harsh punishments in sugary words like ‘timeout room’ may not appease the sensitivity of children.

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