My eight year old niece has expressed interest for learning to play the guitar. No one in her immediate family or extended family is musically inclined and this was something that her parents were quite hesitant to follow through, believing that it might just be phase. The child may outgrow the desire and expenses for buying a guitar and taking lessons will all go to waste.

However, my niece was persistent. All through last year, she took lessons and fortunately, has truly learned to love the art of guitar playing.

Today, she performs actively in a small crowd. In school, during family gatherings, she obliges everyone with her music. I see my niece growing from a shy little child to a confident young lady who really loves what she is doing. Even when no one in her family can play with her she is getting so much support from their encouragement and from constantly asking to listen to her music.

The guitar playing did wonders for her, that it also became a good influence in the way she does her school work. She is more inspired I guess, and her mother recently told me that she has gotten straight A’s.

She has also become more confident among peers. It seems that finding what she’s capable of doing and nurturing this, has boosted her self-esteem.

The other day, I found her teaching some of her friends the basic of guitars and I was really so proud of the way she carried herself and became the “teacher” this time. All these happened, because she chose to pursue what she really loved doing!

This is the story, published yesterday in the Schenectady Daily Gazette, of a man whose 13-year-old son was out of control. Stealing, fighting, bullying, hitting girls… lots of really awful stuff.  This kid was going down the wrong road.  His parents are divorced, and the boy was suspended for stealing things out of teachers’ purses and attacking another boy with a ruler. 

So, when the boy was suspended, the dad picked him up from school and spanked him with a belt.

“I was just trying to be a parent,” Fisher said. “He’s 13 now. I’m trying to raise him to be a man. I couldn’t just sit back and watch him going down the wrong road.”

Four hours later, after the boy was returned to his mother’s house, the police came and arrested Fisher.

Of course, the anti-spanking crowd is horrified by this.  “When kids are spanked, they learn to resolve their problems by hitting,” these folks say.  But it sounds like this kid already knew how to hit all on his own.

The crux of the problem is the fact that the boy got his hide tanned with a belt, not just with an open palm.  Parents will almost never get arrested or charged for infrequent, open palm spanking. 

We do spank our kids occasionally, though only for one offense (lying), and only a few swats with an open palm.  It happens very seldom, but when it does, it makes an impression on them.  But I’ve also seen what happens when spanking is a first resort, not a last one, and that’s no good, either.  Those kids get so inured to it that they still do whatever the heck they want.

Americans are very conflicted about spanking as discipline.  It seems to me that if it is rare and it is a spelled out consequence, it can be effective.  But using a belt seems over the top to me.  Belts, brushes, wooden spoons, or other objects, hurt far more than a hand, and they humiliate more, too.  It’s hard to imagine a good outcome for that situation.