As well as all my siblings and cousins that grew up with me. We were flogged mostly with canes, but sometimes with slippers and rarely with omorogun (the Yoruba name for a special wooden stick used in cooking). We were flogged at home and in school, and, if your neighbour sees you misbehaving on the road, he/she could deliver a swift knock to your head.

We are all grown now, and we have had this conversation quite a number of times: is beating a child really child abuse? We definitely do not feel abused, and not one of us resorts to violence to get their message across. Some of us are married, and none of the spouses has shown or reported any signs of abuse till date.

Various people and studies have come out to say that beating a child and other forms of corporal punishment are forms of abuse and violate the fundamental human rights of the child. They argue that physical punishment causes distress, anger, fear and shame, and that children who get beaten in their childhood usually grow up to be abusers and tend to use violence to get their message across. They also say that beating can affect the child’s self-confidence, causing them to grow into adults constantly grappling with self-esteem issues.

Experts have proposed alternatives to corporal punishment which they say is more effective and definitely less abusive. These alternatives include placing a child in timeout to talking to the child about the consequences of bad behaviour and rewarding good behaviour

I will not argue that these disciplinary measures do not work. I remember my grandfather and my mum would sometimes talk to us like adults instead of flogging us, and even back in school we were not always flogged. Sometimes, we were asked to kneel down and raise our hands or do the legendary pick-pin punishment that would have you confessing all your sins in less than 5 minutes. At other times, our teachers just spoke to us.

Mostly, when we got flogged, it was because we had failed to listen to constant reprimands or were being unnecessarily stubborn. And I think this here is the difference between just flogging a child and flogging a child as a form of correction.

What do you think? Is flogging a child or all other forms of corporal punishment child abuse? Let us know your thoughts in the poll section of weblink below!
https://qwenu.com/2019/01/31/is-beating-a-child-really-child-abuse/

Beating a child is not child abuse
unless you do it often for no reason or you give them the kind of extreme beatings that leave wounds and scars