There are, after all, consequences that flow quite naturally and predictably from our choices and behavior. Sometimes this advice follows rather precisely Rousseau’s emphasis on natural consequences. I learned that one does not have to look very far online to discover bloggers advising parents struggling with child-rearing to turn to consequences rather than punishment. I admit to finding this all rather confusing. Evidently the tutor thinks the experience will be very different for the child if no other person actually inflicts the punishment. Whether inflicted by someone’s will or occurring as consequence, punishment seems to be what the child experiences. But “it” (punishment?) should come as a natural consequence. Keep the child in dependence on things.” Indeed, “punishment as punishment must never be inflicted on children, but it should always happen to them as a natural consequence of their bad action.” The ambiguity of that sentence points to something worth our reflection. “There are two sorts of dependence,” Emile’s tutor says, “dependence on things, which is from nature dependence on men, which is from society. Like the little boy I knew, he simply “has consequences.” The pupil bows not to another person but to the implacable force of nature. This is quite different from a contest of wills. No one inflicts those consequences on him they simply result from the way the world is structured. Inflict no kind of punishment on him.” What the pupil learns from experience is that actions have natural consequences. The tutor describes succinctly his recommended approach: “Do not give your pupil any kind of verbal lessons he ought to receive them only from experience. Punishment has no place in this approach to child-rearing. The tutor does not tell Emile what to do rather, he structures and manipulates the circumstances of Emile’s life in such a way that he learns from the consequences of his actions.
What is the right way to produce a child who will be patient and calm (though resigned) when he has not gotten what he wants? And what can we do to achieve it? Rousseau provides Emile with a tutor and a tightly controlled (and artificial) setting in which he is reared. Rousseau wants to structure the child’s life in such a way that he does not engage the world as that kind of contest. To lose that battle is to have one’s will thwarted. If, instead, we simply control what they do, punishing them when they misbehave, they learn to approach life as a battle between contesting wills. We want children to develop the capacity to live with others, controlling their behavior not because they are compelled to do so but because they take responsibility for themselves and their actions. The aim, put simply, is one with which we could hardly disagree. This became my invitation to think-for the first time, really-about a practice of child-rearing (between infancy and puberty) that up until then I had met only as a theory in Rousseau’s Emile. Hoping to make him feel a little better, I said to him as he left the room, “I’ll see you in the morning.” He looked at me very solemnly. It was late, and after he calmed down, he was sent to get ready for bed.
While staying overnight at his home once, I was treated to the sight of a full-blown tantrum in the living room. Yell at, kick, or hit others, and you faced a range of punishments-anything from a spanking, to sitting in a corner, to being forbidden to go out to play, to the old standby of soap in the mouth (which, having seen A Christmas Story, I can never again think about in quite the same way).
When I was a little boy his age, the answer would have been obvious: punishment. Nevertheless, that sort of behavior couldn’t just be excused, and, of course, if uncorrected it would surely cause problems for him and those around him as he grew older.īut what to do about it? That was the puzzle. He wasn’t entirely to blame for this, having had a rough start in life. Not too many years ago, I knew a little boy who was prone to temper tantrums that included yelling, kicking, and hitting.
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