Physical punishment of children is damaging psychologically and physically. Much has been written about physical punishment and the efforts to stop it (e.g., Elizabeth Gershoff, Murray Straus, and many others). Seventy countries have now banned physical punishment of children. The United States hasn’t banned it, and 16 states still allow physical punishment in schools.
But I would like to take a different approach. I would like to suggest that we can make some headway by considering that human behaviors are caused by their feelings, and if we can put words to the feelings (verbalization), we will go a long way to stopping physical punishment.
In order to explore how putting feelings into words can change behaviors and decrease physical punishment, I will turn to three important figures…
- Charles Darwin
- Anny Katan
- Silvan Tomkins
Putting Words to Feelings
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Charles Darwin
When we think of Darwin, most of us recall his remarkable contributions to the understanding of evolution and his book The Origin of Species, published in 1859. Interestingly, there are almost no detailed discussions of humans in that book: He focused on animals, plants, insects, sea life, land masses, and so on. He dealt in detail with humans and evolution in 1871 with The Descent of Man. Then, in 1872, Darwin published a remarkable book on emotions: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. He studied various feelings and emotions among humans and animals, paving the way for understanding various feelings and how they were expressed: Surprise, fear, joy, anger, shame, shyness, anxiety, grief, contempt, and many more.
This study of emotions – their triggers and expressions – helped set the stage for the 20th-century explosion in psychology, treatment, and the role of feelings on human actions, and why physical punishment of children occurs.
Anny Rosenberg Katan (1898-1992)
Anny Katan
Anny Katan was a child psychologist/psychoanalyst who was born in Vienna, Austria. After escaping the Nazis in WWII, she ultimately moved with her husband and children to the United States, Cleveland, Ohio. In 1951, she established the Hanna Perkins School for the Psychological Treatment of Children. One of her most important publications was quite short: “Some thoughts about the role of verbalization in early childhood” (1961).
In her work with troubled children, Katan realized that the actions of those children were triggered by feelings (as Darwin showed), and that the children had no words for the feelings, making it very difficult for them to understand themselves, their feelings, and actions. They could not verbalize their feelings – and therefore just acted. This has been termed alexithymia – difficulty identifying, describing, and processing one’s emotions.
Putting words to feelings – verbalization – is at the core of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Katan worked with the children and found dramatic positive results when she focused on the connection between actions and words – putting actions into words. But she went a step further. She realized that the parents were also often unable to put words into feelings: “These feelings are not usually given names. Often they are not understood by the parents…the task of the parents is much more difficult. They have to guess at the child’s feelings” (p. 185). Working with children and parents to put words to feelings – verbalization – proved to be extremely effective.
However…what words? What feelings? As we saw with Darwin’s discoveries, humans and animals seemed to have a myriad of feelings. How can we understand feelings, how they work, and verbalization?
This brings us to Silvan Tomkins, Paul Ekman, Virginia Demos, and others.
Silvan Tomkins (1911-1991)
Silvan Tomklns (photo credit: Irving Alexander)
Silvan Tomkins, in a series of four volumes (1962, 1963, 1991, 1992), was then able to convey a deeper understanding of feelings, how they cause actions, and the importance of verbalization.
Tomkins consolidated and highlighted the 9 most basic feelings of humans: Interest, surprise, enjoyment, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust (reaction to bad taste), dissmell (contempt, reaction to bad smell). He showed how these feelings were triggered, how they caused actions in individuals and groups, and the importance of verbalization in human interactions. All in all, Tomkins presented data and ideas about the internal workings of feelings, how feelings could impact relationships and societies, and the value of putting words to the feelings, i.e. verbalization.
Preventing Physical Punishment
I have discussed three remarkable people – and there are many more – who have helped us understand feelings, actions, and verbalization. They have helped us understand how to prevent physical punishment.
For example, consider a 14-year-old boy who is, unusually, making too much noise in class. Rather than get out the hand or paddle, the teacher can talk with the youngster and try to understand what may have happened that day in school or recently at home that produced feelings of distress, anger, or shame. Then the teacher can label the feelings and discuss the problem with the student, with a decrease in the actions and noise he was creating.
Or with a little 4-year-old who had just gotten a present and was so excited that she was running around, dangerously so, and uncontrollably. Rather than hit the child, one could verbalize with her that she was very excited about and interested in her new present, and help her understand her active, noisy behavior.
These are two everyday examples, which so often lead to hitting the youngsters. The hitting in turn, has been shown to create various short-term and long-term problems (Straus, et al, 2014, and much other research).
Interestingly, one area in which progress seems to be occurring is in pre-school and school programs for younger children. Many schools and organizations are using the work stemming from Darwin, Katan, and Tomkins to highlight the names of actual feelings and talk with the youngsters about these feelings. There are large charts in the classrooms, spelling out the words of the feelings. In addition, there are often pictures of faces that demonstrate the expression of each feeling. The combinations of facial expressions and words are very effective in enhancing verbalization, exactly what Anny Katan was finding to be so useful.
In Closing
Physical punishment is like the canary in the coal mine. It is a signal of impending danger. It is a wake-up call, alerting us to take early development seriously, to understand how feelings work, and to be aware of the variables that contribute to violence. More and more countries are banning physical punishment. The three people discussed in detail above – Charles Darwin, Anny Katan, and Silvan Tomkins – greatly deserve our appreciation. Over the years, they have helped us understand the dynamics of feelings and the actions they can cause. The fact that 70 countries now prohibit physical punishment is a testament to the work of these three and that of many others.
References
Darwin, C (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Third Edition, P. Ekman, ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1998
Katan, A (1961). Some thoughts about the role of verbalization in early childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 16:184-188.
Tomkins SS (1991). Affect Imagery Consciousness (Volume III): The Negative Affects: Anger and Fear. New York: Springer
