UNFAIR DISCIPLINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16300, 5 August 1916, Page 6 (Supplement)

UNFAIR DISCIPLINE.

V\ hex staying with a friend quite recently where there were three children. I could not help noticing how that every time one of these children committed a fault all three of them had to bear the brunt of it. Instead of the mother taking the culprit and rebuking her privately, the other two children were included in the scolding. The result was that all three children would go about for the rest of the day feeling that mother was displeased with them.

It seemed to me that not only would the lesson have been more deeply impressed upon the one at fault had she been reproved alone, but that the treatment was very unfair towards the two children who had committed no wrong. Discipline run on such lines as these is never a success, and yet even in schools you'll find this method is often put into practice. One girl may make an error and the whole crass will have to share the consequent reproof, so that the girls are continually living in an atmosphere of complaint and grumbling. Is it a matter of wonder, then, that so many children grow up with a lack of spirit If only parents and teachers would realise the disastrous effect this continuous uncalled-for scolding has upon children, I feel sure they would use more discretion in their plan of administering reproof, and the children would become imbued with the vigour that is natural to them, and less of that timidity would be seen that is common to many families of the present day.