There is a lack of discipline in the school system because there is a lack of discipline at home. Children get what they want, and so the same method is applied at school.

This is not the fault of the parents. Rather, it is the fault of society as a whole. As a nation, we are so terrified to touch our children that now any sort of punishment is looked at as abuse. Spankings? That'll get your kid taken away. If they throw a fit in the middle of the grocery store because you won't let them have any candy, you're stifling their childhood and that makes you a bad mother (or father).

I'm not saying we should abuse our kids. But used in moderation, spankings never hurt anyone. Yes, they hurt at the time. Yes, they're kind of embarrassing. But we learn not to do those things again.

I was given spankings as a punishment when I was younger, and in no way do I feel like I was abused or mistreated. They helped me distinguish between right and wrong. They made me behave in public, or in school, because I knew if I misbehaved I'd have to put up with a spanking when I got home.

Now, we have "time out." Past a certain age, this might actually be useful. But we don't give time out to the children who are actually old enough to understand what its true purpose is. Since when does a three-year-old have enough mental capacity to sit and think about what he's done and come up with alternatives, so he doesn't get put in the same situation again? Toddlers have a very limited capacity for an emotion like guilt, and no sense of time, so what good does it do to tell them they have to sit in a chair for five minutes?

In school, we're now given "suspension" as a punishment. Basically, this means that if we misbehave, we don't have to go to class for X number of days. How is this a punishment? It sounds more like a vacation to me. And it isn't like we're going to be punished for it at home, because that would mean we were being abused.

I never got into trouble in school. Why? The main reason was because I knew I'd be in even more trouble when I got home. But do I think my mother disciplined too harshly, or that she abused me? No. Am I terrified to tell her when I make a mistake and I need help getting out of it? Absolutely not. As I got older, I realized that the punishment was really for a greater good-because Mom loved me, because she wanted me to be a good person and realize that I learn twice as much when I just sit still and listen to what the teacher has to say.

I think that if we still had that kind of support and reinforcement at home, kids wouldn't be getting into half as much trouble as they do now.

Is there a problem with discipline in this country? Yes. Is it because we slap the backs of a toddler's hands when he sticks his fingers in a light socket? No. It's because we're too afraid to discipline. In some places, it's so bad that if a father spanks his daughter, he's labeled a child molester and a sex offender. It doesn't have to be a sexual thing at all. It could just be that the father in this sort of situation is just going to reinforce the ideas that much more.

To solve the problem in the school system, we first need to solve the problem at home. This cannot be done without changing the attitudes of thousands of people around the country when it comes to what is considered abuse and what isn't.

Learn more about this author, Traci Nash.
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