A common mistake we make is to blame other peoples actions on their own personailty, and not look at the situation. When we do something ourselves, we justify it by situational and saying "everybody would act like that if they were in my situation". Speeding for example. Someone flies past us doing 100, we say they're a jerk, inconsiderate of other people, might even blame their parents for not teaching them the rules of the road. However when your father is having a heart attack or seizure, or your wife is having a baby, you dont think twice about speeding. The same mistake can be made with parents and their child. Maybe the parents are treating the child bad because the child induced it, maybe the child is acting bad because the parents were treating them badly. Who knows? Is the bad in the child bringing out the bad in the parents or is bad parents making the child act bad. We should always examine the whole problem and not just classify someone as a "bad parent" "bad person" "jerk" etc.
With that being said, now about Beating children. Violence is always the easy way out. I was "disciplined" as a child. Whipped, slapped, hit, etc for my "bad behaviors", most of which I had no clue why they was hitting me. I learned not to trust my parents, i didnt get too close to them, they had a bad temper that i wanted to avoid. They would whip me when i was very young because i would not listen to them, i ignored them, but later they found out I was deaf, I was deaf until age 3. I didn't enjoy being around my parents, if a bad experience didnt arise with me being around them, bad memories of such experiences did. Children should be loved, not raised like cattle. I dont remember the last time ive touched (hugged, shook hands, etc) any of my parents. I plan on having a child of my own, and try to do a better job.
I guess Machiavelli was right, fear is a greater emotion than love. How sad.
