Why Beating Yourself Or Your Kids Will Not Improve Discipline

Why are you in a BDSM with yourself? Does it really help to improve your discipline?

I was beaten like French royalty and almost sent to the guillotine because I SPENT MY MONEY. I remember how my mum was panting, and I was gasping, both of us exhausted from what she was doing to me. It was a really wild —but now hilarious— encounter. She insisted she was teaching me a life lesson. I could only remember trying to stay alive.

What happened?

As grandmas do, my maternal grandmother had come to visit us with many gifts for her grandchildren. She owned a large farm and did some trading, so there were lots of fruits, cute rabbits, and candies. Knowing my mum was a prudent consumer, she gave me ₦200 when she was leaving. The purpose? So I could have money to buy some candy at school while my mum was policing consumption in the house. She had handed me the crisp note when we saw her off, and unbeknownst to me, my mum saw the transaction.

I ran back home to buy some candies from my neighbour, another grandma who always gave me more than I paid for. I took the candies to my room and hid them. I invested ₦100 worth of sweets. This was around 2006 when you could get seven wraps of candy for ₦5. I was candy rich. But not for long.

Like cryptocurrency’s volatility, my mum crashed my sweet tooth indulgence when she asked me to present the money my Grandma gave me. I pulled out a wrinkled ₦20 note, and my mum pulled out a slap. It was the fastest transaction I had been in—also the fastest litigation. Before I could figure out what was happening, she read my charges to me; lying, hiding public property, consumption indulgence, preventing my siblings from enjoying the loot, embezzlement of public funds, lack of financial intelligence… by the time the charge sheet was complete, I was almost passed out.

When my father returned from his stroll, he was surprised to see me sleeping on a Sunday evening, close to the time for 6 pm news. He woke me up, and I confessed to him. He was furious and placed a ban on beating of any form in the house. The ban lasted until my younger sister spilt water in the kitchen that night.

If I learned anything from that beating, it was that; I should always ask for a crisp note as change if someone gifted me a crisp note that my mum probably saw me collect. Also, always run to your room and sleep after a gifting visitor leaves. My mum would not remember the money until days later; then it would become difficult to prove the exact amount. I learned nothing that she wanted me to know. I just learned how to be a smoother “criminal”.

Many crimes later…

This must have been in 2009 when I was in Secondary School. I stole money in the house and my mum, the Private Investigator, fished it out of my Maths Set. I was late for school because my dad was dropping me off, so he prevented any form of further delay. The ride was ominously silent. My father was disappointed, and I was unmoved. I was ready to steal some money again to prove to my mum that I could outwit her after every beating. I had become a terrorist on amnesty; waiting to return to arms.

That morning, my dad asked me why I was stealing. Silence. “Are you proud of yourself… as a thief?” Silence. “When you take what does not belong to you, you are not only hurting yourself but other people. It becomes difficult for anyone to trust you even when you are honest because you might be in character.”

“Is this who you want to become?” I started crying. I was not stealing because I needed money. I have always been a minimalist. I only want a few things, and once I got them, I was fine. I also learned not to be too emotionally attached to money because I did not get a lot of it, and it made me angry — anger I have learned to deal with by detachment. I never wanted much, just enough for me to go by. But if there was something I knew at that point that I did not want to do, it was making other people sad because I wanted to be happy. Eventually, I would feel guilty, and none of us would be happy. It was not worth it. Even though it took years for me to regain everyone’s trust that I was not responsible for missing items — most times, they were just misplaced— I eventually did. I could skip school, use my lunch money to play PS2 during school hours, place bets to get extra gaming time, but I started hating stealing.

It became a self-discipline trait

I did not realise how much I had absorbed so many destructive behaviours I picked up as a child until later into adulthood. I would do certain actions on a whim, and people would wonder how I was so decisive — it’s the trauma baby.

I had since started looking at things I did when I was much younger and examined them against my traits as an adult. During one of such reflections over the week, I remember when I used to punish myself for everything I did wrong as a teenager. I would loathe myself for not making an application. I would berate myself for not keeping with an activity. Slowly, I was terrorising myself based on past trauma.

However, this has changed significantly in how I handle challenges.

Here is what I have learned

Many people believe they are doing fine because they were beaten as kids. No, you had a traumatic childhood that you should heal from. Constant punishments, beating yourself or others will most likely make you or the person a more formidable criminal. If you berate yourself too much for missing an opportunity, you are likely to feel less confident when another opportunity comes. You then berate yourself even harder and feel unworthy. This creates a vicious cycle of you eating your own tail and being angry at the world for not seeing that your tail is being consumed.

Instead of the constant beating, try to have a conversation with yourself. Always try to reflect on your actions before, during and after taking them. It is important to ask yourself these questions:

1. Why am I doing this?

2. What will I benefit from this?

3. Where will this take me to?

4. Who else will benefit from this?

5. When will this be over/how long will it take you to execute it?

6. How will you deal with success or failure?

Importantly,

Accept the things you can’t change and change the things you can’t accept. But do this with love, compassion and understanding.

You do not have to get it right immediately. Allow yourself to fail as many times as possible, but replace beating yourself with talking to yourself. Yes, you made a mistake, but what next?

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