Never spare the ‘rod’ :
I read a most interesting report in your paper the other day that gave me great comfort and the answer to a puzzle that had been troubling me for years. I’m indebted to the writer, humanitarian and friend of Bangladesh, Sir Frank Peters for this.
I have always been an opponent of corporal punishment to children and could never understand why people who love their children would ever want to beat them or allow anyone else (teacher or otherwise) to do so.
As a mother of two half-angels at times and half-monsters most other times, I can’t help but agree with Sir Frank when he says “the majority of children will drive you up the wall and many are naturally curious to see how high you will go, but that’s no justification for beating them”.
Since my childhood I could never understand the expression ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. Which was taken by most (including me) to mean beat your children into accepting your discipline. I could not understand how the holy books could preach such cruelty and abuse.
The answer I found in Sir Frank’s report and I’m so glad I read it.
In Proverbs 13:24 it states, ‘He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him’ and as a result parents and school teachers have been beating their children without remorse for decades.
His report points out that in Hebrew, the word translated as ‘rod’ is the same word used in Psalms 23:4, “thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
The shepherd’s rod (or staff, as it’s sometimes called) is used to guide the sheep to prevent them from straying and is never used to beat them.
The truth struck me like a bolt of lightening from Heaven. A farmer would never hit an animal and risk damaging the meat and lowering his profit and neither should a child be hit and risk damaging them and lowering their potential. As Sir Frank Peters suggests the proverb should read ‘spare good guidance and spoil the child’.
Can you imagine the greatest of holy men like Muhammad (PBUH) or Jesus, who preached universal love, beating a child? – I cannot.
Corporal punishment in schools and homes must end. It’s the will of God.
—Halima Annis
