Punishments – The Beginning

The topic of our conversation today is extremely interesting, but to the same degree it is a painful one for the entire system of upbringing: setting boundaries and punishments. We have talked with children on this topic and even filmed a separate program in which they voiced their opinions about what they feel when they are punished, and how, in their view, it ought to happen. Today, perhaps, we will be able to learn something new for ourselves, as well as help everyone better understand this very difficult aspect of upbringing. Let us begin with you explaining what the difficulty of this question is. In previous conversations you said that you are fundamentally against punishments.

No, that is not quite so.

There are a great many questions and doubts about how to set boundaries for a child without harming him. Every educator and parent seeks that opportunity to stop the child in time and direct him properly, to create the right framework for him, one that will hold for a long time. It often feels as though punishments both offend the child and are effective only for a very short while. Moreover, we most often resort to punishments when we are irritated, unbalanced, or simply tired. In such cases punishment is, of course, not merely useless but harmful. But even if it is a considered action and the parent has consulted a psychologist — and quite a few such parents come to me — even in this case there is a sense that punishment does not bring the desired result. Parents are forced to constantly intensify the measures, and it is unclear why punishments do not produce a result over the long term.

Because there are no punishments in Nature. And we do not have them either. What we call punishment is merely the result of our distorted understanding of the laws of Nature. You can call it Nature or the Upper Governance, it makes no difference. Each of us feels what he has earned in accordance with his attitude toward Nature, toward the environment. So we ourselves and our environment are to blame for all our misfortunes. And all of us in this world constantly feel ourselves to be receiving punishment or reward. In reality no one punishes us, but there is a law of Nature that requires a proper attitude of a person toward the environment. If we are in harmony with the surrounding world, then we feel comfortable and calm and perceive this as a reward. And conversely, if there is no such harmony, then our sensations will be such that we call it punishment. But what kind of punishment is that? It is what we ourselves have prepared for ourselves as a result of our disharmony with Nature.

So our entire worldview — that we are the center of the universe and that someone is punishing us — is mistaken?

Of course not. A person builds his own world. And with regard to children, who are entirely under the influence of adults, what punishment can we even speak of? If we raise them incorrectly, and therefore they behave aggressively and disrupt the balance with their environment, then it is our fault. And on top of that we punish them?! By doing so we simply sign our name to our own helplessness as educators.

So it turns out that every time a child does something wrong, the adults are to blame because they raised him incorrectly?

Who else? After all, he is completely dependent on them. There is no one to blame but ourselves.

But surely parents want, first of all, to teach the child not to do what may be dangerous or bad for him, and then to teach him what is good for him.

The child is under the absolute influence of adults, and so his failures are their blunders. There is nothing to blame the child for, since he is merely a small creature with a certain set of qualities and instincts that develop under the influence of adults. Therefore it is only the adult of whom we can demand that he seek and refine his approach to the child in order to achieve success. But because this does not work out, can we really blame him? Therefore it is not the child who should be punished, but the adult.

But what is one to do if a child displays negative impulses?

You, the adult, must find a remedy for this, rather than demand that he somehow restrain what he is incapable of restraining.

Did I understand correctly that, together with the child, one should establish permanent rules of conduct and corresponding punishments?

No, it is not we who establish the laws, but Nature.

Suppose a child was rude. How does Nature react to this?

It means that such is his nature — to be rude. You must find such methods of upbringing as to correct that rudeness and short temper into other, more proper forms of behavior. By the way, what proper behavior is still has to be clarified, proceeding from the laws of Nature and not from our own understanding.

What is proper behavior?

That has to be studied. But you will agree that it is wrong for an adult, who himself received an improper upbringing, to raise a new generation in the same manner.

Then it turns out that the parents are not to blame either, since they themselves did not receive a proper upbringing.

Exactly right. But that does not give them the right to act upon the child by force and to punish him. They are obliged to seek the educational means suited to him, taking into account the difference between the generations, which today is enormous.

One moment, I do not understand what you call punishment: when a parent forbids something, or when he stops unworthy behavior?

It does not matter.

Did I understand you correctly that there is no need to set a framework?

Punishment is any action that obliges a child to do something within the bounds of restriction and pressure, without his understanding and consent.

That is, something imposed on him?

Yes. Of course, I am not talking about physical punishment, that is understood.

Yes, regarding physical punishments there is general agreement that they cause great harm to the child and are more a nervous outburst than upbringing.

I would call it "monkey upbringing."

All right. But still, from the very earliest age there is such a reaction in a child that he reaches toward where it is good for him and runs away from where it is bad for him. We can and should use this quality for the purpose of upbringing.

In upbringing all this can undoubtedly be used, but only after the child has had it explained to him and he understands and is aware of what is happening to him. Without the child's awareness of himself, of his behavior, of his relations with the environment, there is no true upbringing — there is only a regimen imposed on him by adults.

Training?

Not even training. Through training one can instill some new qualities in an animal, and they become its second nature, but with a person this is impossible.

Let us watch a clip in which children talk about what punishment they feel to be useful and what not.

"D. When children in the class are punished, it doesn't help much.

Host: Why?

D. Suppose I'm disrupting the teacher during the lesson. If the teacher punishes me, I only get angry at him.

Host: Are you talking about yourself? Were you the one who got angry at the teacher?

D. Yes.

Host: But did you stop disrupting the lesson? Just tell the truth.

D. No.

Host: But why? After all, it's clear that if you disrupt again, you'll be punished again.

D. But I also get irritated and sometimes do it out of spite toward the teacher. In any case, punishments don't help much, they only frighten.

N. Sometimes it's even pleasant to be punished. For example, if I'm sent out of the class, I'm glad, because I can play.

Host: Ah, so punishment leads to the opposite result?"

Our upbringing developed out of the period of industrialization, when there was a need to train workers for the factories and plants. That is when they began teaching literacy to village children. That is also when the school system developed, with its division by ages, into grades, which began to "stuff" young people with a minimal set of knowledge and turn them out to work at the plants. Until the middle of the 20th century this still worked. But today the world has changed; there is no longer a need for such a quantity of workers — 10% of humanity is enough to service all of industry.

Machines have replaced people.

Yes, the world has become different, and man has changed. Today we can no longer make mere order-followers (simple performers) out of children; they are made of different material. And instead of raising progressive, thinking people who understand themselves and all of Nature, we continue in the old way and do not draw the right conclusions. Upbringing lags behind in its development compared with all the other rapidly developing fields, such as psychology, psychiatry, sociology, political science. Teachers simply look archaic, like dinosaurs. And these are the people who work with children!

They are supposed to prepare the new generation!

Far from it! Just the opposite! They belong to the previous generation, not even to the current one! Sometimes I speak with teachers and see before me people living by notions that are 50 years old.

Today everything develops too fast.

Yes, but the parents with whom the children live are more advanced than the teachers, and they see in the teacher more of an overseer and a dictator than an educator. The whole system that exists today is outdated and does not correspond to modern society.

Outdated in both structure and content?

I am not even talking about content. Right now we are speaking about the training of teachers, about their approach to upbringing. The school itself, with its traditional arrangement, cannot today satisfy the needs of children and of society. How many hyperactive children are there now?

Approximately up to 10%. And that is only the children who have been recognized as such and who receive medication and all sorts of allowances on exams and so on. And there is a tendency for the percentage of such children to increase.

We must understand that this is not an illness and not a phenomenon, but a general tendency, and in accordance with it we must change our teaching methods. What will we do if half the children are hyperactive?

How is that possible?

Hyperactive children are not an anomaly. They are the normal children of our time.

Are you saying that this is the new norm?

Yes. So what is to be done now? We must change absolutely everything: the arrangement of the classrooms, the teaching methods; the lesson itself must become a thing of the past — that is, absolutely everything must change.

And then there will be no behavior problems, and the need for punishments and restrictions will fall away?

Upbringing must suit the child, not be convenient for the teacher or the educational system.

What, then, suits children today? I see the teacher as almost helpless, having no means to work with the new, more developed generation, with hyperactive children. He simply does not know how to cope with all of it.

I think that learning and upbringing should be very dynamic. The greater part of learning should generally take place not in school but in museums, parks, factories, hospitals, print shops… Children should see and study life in all its manifestations. In all these places they need to be told and shown how everything works. We must give them a feeling for life. It is precisely these impressions that will calm them, and not the school walls, which are perceived as prison bars. Classrooms, teachers, and the whole school arrangement in general can no longer satisfy children.

So you believe that we should not confine children within the rigid framework of school walls and discipline and demand that they restrain themselves all the time, since this is against their nature. Instead, we should give them the opportunity to receive varied, rapidly changing impressions, through which they will learn.

They must take part in life.

To see life in all its manifestations and actively participate in it, starting from the very earliest age?

Yes.

But still, how does one correctly set limits for children? What should replace the punishments accepted today? Perhaps one simply needs to set a condition — for example, if the child does something, he gets a reward, and if not, then he cannot get it?

No, the child must himself feel the results of his actions, and not a reaction coming from adults. He receives the reaction from life, and this teaches him.

How is that to be achieved?

Tell me, will a 10-year-old child jump from a height of several meters? He will be afraid, because he will see the punishment. So he should see the punishment for any bad action.

How would that happen in a discussion? For example, in relationships within the collective: how will the child know that a punishment threatens him for some behavior, if we have not clarified beforehand the laws that are laws of Nature?

The collective must give him that understanding. Why should we interfere in it? It is precisely the children themselves who must express their disapproval.

Does that mean that the children's collective must itself establish the laws that everyone will follow? — Yes, of course. The children must decide what is comfortable for them and what is not.

The children themselves must make the decision?

Yes.

From what age are they capable of making such decisions themselves?

From the very earliest. When do children begin to play collective games — with a ball, for instance? From that age they already understand what a collective is.

It seems to me that this is the age of 6–7. By then they can already see themselves as part of a group, that is, they move away from egocentrism.

That means they are ready for upbringing.

We have prepared another excerpt from the same program, where children answer the question of what, in their view, punishment should concern. They arrived at a very interesting conclusion. Let us watch.

"Host: We should establish some rules of relations among ourselves, right? But what are these rules for? If you were now given the opportunity to establish such laws, what is the main thing they should preserve?

There should be rules that will not allow harm to be done to any of the children. For example, you must not steal in school, because that will harm another, since you win at his expense.

You must not waste water, because that will bring harm to everyone.

Host: So even a matter such as the reasonable use of water, which would seem to have no connection to anything at all, is also important, because one has to take everyone into account. Interesting. So all the laws ultimately come down precisely to this."

We see that the children did after all arrive at such a conclusion, but in reality it is very far from simple to bring children to the understanding that the laws must concern one's attitude toward one's neighbor.

No, I think that through discussion it is possible. By talking about topics close to children, it is entirely achievable. With the example of water it is harder to do, since such a topic is, after all, rather far from the children's world. But if we speak about what is close to children, and draw everyone into the conversation, not only the most active ones, engage their feelings, get them interested, then everything can be achieved. One need only be sure to take care that it is interesting and that all the children participate without fail. For example, if the topic of good and evil is being discussed, then the conversation must be such as to leave no child indifferent. It must give him a reason for analysis and touch his feelings. And then one can be certain that such a discussion will leave deep inner impressions in him and will influence his further behavior.

Are you speaking about children's play impressions?

All of children's sensations are only play. Our whole life is a game.

In reality, children's play impressions are rather limited.

Then we must create new models, animations, for them.

That is, deliberately create situations and then discuss them.

Yes.

And negative models too? It seems to me you once said that we should give children only positive examples.

What do you mean by "negative models"?

Well, say, some example in which a child disturbs those around him or uses them, and the children have to arrive at the conclusion about the harm of such behavior.

But they must arrive at such a conclusion as a result of discussion.

I am asking about the child's impressions. Can we use negative impressions, or only positive ones? That is, is such a path possible, in which a child does something that negatively affects those around him, gets a negative result, and from that experience learns that it is not worth acting that way?

Of course. If not the reaction of the collective, then how else will he learn?

So we can allow some act that will harm others, but from that experience the child will learn not to act that way in the future?

No, that is not what I meant.

One cannot allow deliberate harm to be done. But is it possible, for example, to let children begin some game without first discussing any rules of conduct whatsoever? When each one starts doing whatever he pleases, the children will simply begin to get in each other's way. They will feel these disturbances before real harm. They will understand that this way nothing will come of it for them, and that it is necessary to discuss the rules. This is a kind of primary model of human society, and children will be able to learn from it how rules and restrictions accepted by all can eliminate contradictions and bring order to relations among people. — Yes, but it is important that they themselves establish these rules.

In such groups usually only some of the children take part in the discussion.

That is the result of insufficient clarification, insufficient analysis.

Do you believe that one should not orient oneself toward the active ones?

No, everyone must participate. Of course, the more active children will react more quickly, but ultimately absolutely everyone must understand what is happening.

Usually there are children who are leaders, and they arrive at conclusions before everyone else.

No, we are obliged to reach each of the children in the group, and each one, in accordance with his level of understanding, must agree with the conclusions.

So participation must be complete.

It must be.

This differs from the approach accepted today.

Otherwise we will never arrive at a corrected state of society. If some portion of the children remains who have not understood our principles, then out of them will later come people who do not recognize laws — thieves and other criminals.

How does one measure the degree to which everyone is taking part?

We measure only through discussion and through the children's reactions to everything that happens to them. In all our discussions each child must feel all those varied situations that we offer him. Then he must tell about them as he understood them, and hear the reactions of the other children. We must not be afraid to spend a great deal of time on this, since it is precisely through such discussion that the child's proper connections with those around him are formed, and this is the most important thing.

In these discussions he begins to feel what is good and what is bad, what is more sensitive and what is less. Here the threads are formed that connect him to the world. Such experience enriches the child and makes him communicative. His fear of the world disappears, and abilities for communication and for achieving a goal are formed in him. Then these children will be able to understand why the external world is arranged according to certain laws, and they will be capable of forming their attitude toward them. And without such open and purposeful discussion within his small society, we will not be able to form an adult person.

If I understand correctly, you are, after all, speaking about very inner processes. But at the beginning of our conversation we had in mind something external. After all, punishments come from outside, and the child has only to learn to conform to these external conditions.

I am not talking about punishments at all. I do not understand why you keep using this word. The child must feel the punishment himself, and it must immediately reorient him correctly. You know, there is a robot vacuum cleaner with photocells built into it, and it automatically changes direction when it bumps into furniture or some object.

Yes, it backs up and finds the right direction, while the person can go off for a walk.

This is what is called punishment: it bumped into something, sees that this is not good, and changed direction. But if a child has not received a proper upbringing, then, having bumped into an obstacle, he will try to take it by force. After all, every such collision is a conflict with the external environment, and he must understand this.

Understand, that is, make an inner analysis?

Yes, he must check it against those examples that have remained in him from the discussions in the group (I deliberately do not say "in the class," but specifically "in the group").

This is in fact a social upbringing.

There, from these inner examples, he must understand and regulate the situation.

To form within himself a center of inner regulation.

Yes.

And then, after a lengthy process that every child will go through, he will be able to regulate himself and his behavior from within, and this fundamentally differs from today's situation, where we impose external restrictions and children resist them in every way.

In our conversations we must teach the child an inner dialogue with himself.

This is what you have spoken about many times — the capacity for reflection, for observing oneself from the outside, for analysis. This is far from simple.

But we will continue the discussion of this important topic in the next conversation. Today we spoke about how there are no punishments, but there are laws operating in the world and in the child's environment of communication, and these laws must be understood. The natural reaction to these laws creates positive and negative sensations. And it is from this that the child learns. Learning must be based on the child's feelings and impressions.