DISCIPLINING children is under the spotlight.
The Constitutional Court earlier this month ruled that corporal punishment is illegal in South African homes when Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng upheld a 2017 high court ruling which made it illegal for parents to spank their children at home.
Civil society group, Freedom of Religion South Africa, appealed the ruling stating that the judgment would make criminals of well-meaning parents.
Section 12A (1), Children’s Amendment Bill states, “Any person caring for a child, including a person who has parental responsibilities and rights in respect of a child, must not treat or punish the child in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.”
ALSO READ: “Why I will never hit my daughter!” – The Don Father
“Any punishment, within the home or other environment, in which physical force or action is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or harm to the child, is unlawful.”
Gillitts’ single dad and psychologist, Siyabonga Nzimande, said eliminating corporal punishment doesn’t mean no punishment for children. “This simply means we need to enforce positive discipline in our home as it has been with schools. This may take is a while but we need to learn how to positively discipline our children,” he said.
Nzimande’s statement is supported by dad blogger, Don Dinnematin, who recently wrote an article on his blog titled, Why I will never hit my daughter!
According to Dinnematin, we are living in scary times, times that have us in fear for the future of our children.
“Our daughters need to be raised with the understanding that nothing, absolutely nothing, can warrant being physically or verbally abused by anyone. Our sons need to be raised with the understanding that it is not, and will never be okay, to verbally or physically abuse a woman! Ever!” he said.
Westville mother of two and peace education specialist, Hailey Fudu, admits that this is a controversial issue but as a teacher and mother, she thinks it is a step in the right direction.
“If we respect our children and teach them with firmness, education and love rather than smacking them, we are teaching them a new culture of consultation, justice, reward, punishment and mercy. And it can be harder, but has the potential of transforming our culture of violence into as culture of peace and mutual respect,” she said.
Fudu added that this advanced method of parenting is hard work, but will help build children into something better than we have seen before.
“Our job as parents is to do a little better than the last generation and if we are to contribute to an ever advancing civilization, we need to be willing to try new methods,” she added.
Spare the rod?
The Highway Mail asked New Germany pastor, New Germany pastor, Thandie Ngonelo from the Act of Obedience Ministries for his comment from the Christian perspective. Freedom of religion is a constitutional right. Is the new law then a contradiction?
“The constitutional court has ruled that it is illegal for parents to spank their children. Proverbs 22:15 says ‘Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but a rod of correction will take it out.’ Refer again to Proverbs 23:13, ‘Don’t be afraid to correct your young ones; a spanking won’t kill them. A good spanking, in fact, might save them from something worse than death.’
Proverbs 23:13 says: ‘Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod he will not die.’ And Proverbs 23:24 says: ‘The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.’
These scriptures are not suggestions but are instructions that come from God. The earth is the Lord’s and its fullness thereof. Even the very children who seem to be a bone of content in this matter belong to God and He has given them to parents to be raised by them according to His laws and statutes.
“It is God who said that a rod of correction must be used on them. In other words, if it is not used, it means we are raising a generation of foolish children. We cannot make a rule over children who don’t belong to us – the laws of the country can’t overrule the laws of God.
“When we break God’s laws, we are not breaking the laws per se, but breaking ourselves. When the rod of correction was taken out of schools, the children started doing what was supposed to be done to them by the teachers, so even now it means children are going to so the same thing to their parents. Is this what we want to see happen? God forbid. May God have mercy on our country.”
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