Send 'em a what??????

 

Rick and I are side by side in bed each with our laptops trying to get a bit done before the day REALLY starts...

Okay, what we're really doing is checking news, FB, emails.

After laughing together at an old Carol Burnett video, we went back into our own worlds.

From time to time we read something to each other.

Then he read out the headline from this site.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/03/04/study-yelling-physical-abuse-have-similar-effects-on-children/

"What are we suppose to do to discipline them?" he asked. "Send 'em a text?"

Time to go make oatmeal and tea...
........................................
After I posted this, an anthropologist friend sent me an email. I think it is an interesting comment.

This comment will be longer than I think can go on your blog.  Anyway, they said they would ask me to sign in for something, and I didn't want to be bothered!

 

I don't know about societies like ours, so complex and yet too simple, concentrating on the nuclear family.  But in more "simple" societies, such as SW American and NE American Indians, the literature describes a really interesting disciplinarian system - expelling a naughty child from the social network - literally, but not physically.  That is to say, no one at all in the society accepts or recognizes behavior which is "anti-social", and proceeds to completely ignore the child.  No speaking, seeing, answering, , touching, incorporating in festivities, serving, comforting, or even FEEDING!!  The child knows very well that s/he is completely dependent on the social group, and it's very scary for h/er/im to be put out of the group.  No reporter on this ever saw a child stand up to this "expulsion" more than 2 days.  They usually try tantrums on the first day but don't continue after that, since no one at all has (overtly) paid attention.

 

And in certain of the groups - Hopi and Zuni especially - the famous Kachinas (spiritual entities in more or less human form) come out from their underground ceremonies and circle the village, menacing any child who has been seen to be naughty.  Imagine!! - 'God' knocks at the apartment door of the child and threatens her/him and sometimes does this physically.  Kachinas are actually the uncles of any child, the male person with authority in this matrilineal society, but the child doesn't  know that.  So the fact that this 'God' knows what the child has done is very, very scary!!  Sort of like the "boogie-man", no? 

 

P.S.  There is a lot of conformity in these societies to the norms and rules of the whole group.  To this day.