‘Corporal punishment not best way’

CORPORAL punishment is violent that has been used as a way of discipline on children by parents in all society in the country and this has to stop.
This was the message by the Save the Children PNG representatives yesterday, at a training held for media personnel at the Granville Motel in Port Moresby.
Senior project officer Hennie Kama said physical abuse or assault on a child to discipline was a common practice in the country that had left the child to be abusive later in life.
Verbal abuse was most the common among the female population, who are
emotionally affected, whereas for the male was the physical abuse.
She said these types of discipline on children were not acceptable, nor did they help in the child’s development.
“There is a different approach parents can take to discipline their children and that is by imposing the positive discipline approach,” she said.
Mrs Kama and her colleague, Olno Dorjpurev gave tips on how to use the positive discipline on children, saying that the key to understanding why children do things was to firstly understand their development stages in life.
“In that way, we know how to deal with their problems and also control our anger from rising and approach each problem with positive attitude through the different stages or age group,” Mrs Kama said.
The positive discipline outlined was to go down to the child’s level and talk openly on what is expected of him with the right attitude towards others in the society.
The main points to remember of the positive discipline was to have a long-term goal for your child, create a warm environment and have a structure in place in the family unit, understand how children think and feel and finally as parents solve their problems.
Mrs Kama said parents were not given enough knowledge on how to discipline their children as it was a learning process.
“Parents must be problem solvers and do it in a non-violent way,” she said.
The Save the Children PNG is now working with other NGOs and international organisations to fight corporal punishment in the country.
“There are 20 organisations already behind us and we want you the media to reach out to the Government and the law makers to change the current Criminal Code Act 1974 that permits assault on children,” Mrs Kama said.