A Wooden Spoon

If you look up the word discipline in the dictionary you will likely come across a word with many different meanings. Today (for this post) I looked it up and found 11 different definitions for this one word (oh the beauty of the english language). Thanks to my mother and father I know the many definitions of the word. They may not be exactly how Webster himself envisioned it to be but trust me, they taught me discipline.

When it comes to the practice of discipline and children today there is a fine line between what is "right" and "wrong". Today, for example, if a child hits their parent they are put in timeout and things are taken away for a determined amount of time (this somehow discourages the act of violence through a nonviolent reaction). If I had ever hit one of my parents (something I never even dreamed of) I would have been pummeled and then thrown in my moms room (since there weren't toys there) to think about why I just got the crap smacked out of me.

By now I assume you are familiar with which meaning of the word I am talking about today so I will further extrapolate on my theory that old school discipline mixed with some features of the new work better than what has been done most recently. I am not advocating that you beat your child senseless for simple acts of disobedience but rather maybe using some gentle force to illustrate that you mean business with your punishment for behavioral deviance.


They come in many shapes and sizes but all of them are useful.


The wooden spoon, for one, is a great deterrent for bad behavior. It is a simple object that is very useful both in and out of the kitchen. First off, you can't do too much damage with a wooden spoon. Any over zealous punishment (excessive force) will be negated when the spoon breaks. Trust me these things break, ask my mother. Second, wooden spoons hurt. They don't hurt as much as maybe a wooden bat or a broken golf club handle (not that I would know or anything) but they hurt enough to leave an impression on a child. Speaking of impressions, I remember when we were kids and we weren't listening or we were just being plain bad my mom would warn us once then she would reach for the dreaded wooden spoon. As soon as she reached for that spoon I would straighten up. My brother on the otherhand; well let's not go there. I'll just say that I got the spoon a lot less than he did and it was all because of that first time I got it. I never forgot.

These days most parents are of the ilk that a child needs to be nurtured when they act out. The child is craving attention if they are being bad. You hear a lot of "oh he/she is just testing boundaries" or "if you do that again you are going to get time out". In my day you heard the rush of wind behind my dads hand right before it smacked you in the back of the head telling you to straighten up or you're going to get it worse when we are at home.

When a child "tests" his or her boundaries how do they get a result of that litmus? My theory is that a lot of children never truly know their boundaries because they have never had any set for them. I am sorry if I am insulting you by saying this but timeout is the ultimate fail in setting boundaries. What does the child learn from sitting in the corner as a punishment? What if the boundary that they were testing was something that could lead them to potentially hurting themselves, or worse hurting someone else in the process? "Hey you just ran out in the middle of the road after I told you not to so I am going to stick you in time out so you can think about what you did" just doesn't get the point across. This time they got lucky and they just had to sit in the corner. What happens when a car is barreling down the street next time and they aren't so lucky?

When you associate a little pain and tears with the punishment you get a much better response in the long haul. Once again, I am not an advocate for child abuse and I would never encourage anyone to beat their child senseless for any reason. I do believe there is a fine line between a smack for punishment and an over the top beating. I also believe that it is a line that most of us can walk and find a balance on.

Try it sometime. Next time your kid or kids are acting up and not listening to your direction (as parents we are directors of our households) give them a smack on the butt with a wooden spoon. Let them cry it out and when they are done sit down with them and make sure they understand why they were disciplined in such a manner. The key isn't in the beating it is in the understanding of why there was one (ah there's the new school). All beings understand pain even at the earliest stages of life. Not all can understand the abstract nature of sitting in a corner especially if their young mind hasn't been trained to understand the theory behind the act.

The next time you are out in public and they start acting up all you will need to say is "wooden spoon" and they will straighten right up and a good time will be had by all.