17th
Crime and punishment for kids
When I was young, I had a friend named Wilson. He was one of three boys. When one of them hit the other, the punishment was that their dad held the offending child from behind while the victim was encouraged to punch his attacker in the gut.
A while back, after an episode of fraternal aggression among my own three boys, I related this story to them and asked them to evaluate this as a response to violence among children. They were taken aback - shocked at Wilson’s dad’s approach. They said it sounded mean, cruel, frightening, and all that stuff you might expect kids to say. Then, after only a short pause, they discovered the elephant in the room. They asked me why I was telling them that story.
“It’s very tricky,” I answered, “for a parent to figure out exactly the right way to get his kids to stop hurting each other. So I, personally, don’t know how I feel about Wilson’s dad’s methods. But I’ll tell you one thing - those boys almost never hit one another once that punishment was introduced.”
I haven’t had to settle a physical altercation among them since.
