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By Dr Naveen Nair Gangadaran
The classroom once fell silent at the mere sight of a cane. I still remember our discipline teacher walking along the corridor, the rhythmic tap of the cane against the floor enough to send students rushing back to their seats.
Nobody needed to be told twice. Fear kept us in line. Perhaps respect did too, although looking back, the two were sometimes difficult to separate. That world feels very different now.
Today, teachers may find themselves dealing with students who answer back, threaten to “report” them, or pull out a phone when a confrontation begins. Parents may question why a teacher was stern with their child.
A disciplinary incident can leave the classroom and appear online within hours, stripped of context and open to public judgment. It is tempting to look back and say discipline was simply better before. But was it?
I remember coming home after being scolded by a teacher and hoping for some sympathy. My father’s response was usually brief. “You must have done something wrong. Teachers don’t scold for no reason.” That was the understanding then. School was not merely a place for academic learning.
Teachers occupied a position of enormous respect. The old Sanskrit saying “Maatha, Pitha, Guru, Deivam” (Mother, Father, Teacher, God) placed the teacher after mother and father, before even the divine. Parents generally stood behind teachers. Children understood where authority lay.
Many of us grew up with discipline, humility and a clear understanding that actions had consequences. But we should also be honest about what came with that system.
Some children behaved because they understood right from wrong. Others behaved because they were frightened of being shouted at, embarrassed or punished. Silence is not always the same as respect.
From fear to understanding
Children today are growing up differently. They are encouraged to speak, ask questions and express what they feel. Sometimes this is interpreted as disrespect. Sometimes, admittedly, it is disrespect. I see the difference even within my own family.
My six-year-old nephew seems to have one favourite word: “Why?” Why must I do this? Why can’t I do that? Why did you say so? For those of us who grew up with “because I said so”, the endless questioning can be exhausting. Yet it also tells us something about this generation.
They have grown up expecting explanations. That does not mean every rule requires a negotiation. Children still need adults to say no.
This, I think, is where modern discipline sometimes gets misunderstood. Moving away from fear does not mean moving away from boundaries. Listening to a child does not mean allowing the child to decide everything. Empathy is not permissiveness.
I once watched my cousin deal with her seven-year-old son, an energetic boy who can be difficult to settle when he becomes frustrated.
She was firm with him. There was no doubt about who the parent was. But instead of simply shouting or punishing him, she explained what he had done, why it mattered and what she expected from him.
Then she listened. After a while, she redirected him to another activity. The anger disappeared. He settled. Watching them, I realised that authority had not disappeared at all. It had simply changed its language. Understanding behaviour can help us respond to it better.
A child who lashes out may be frustrated, tired, anxious, seeking attention or struggling to express something. Another child may simply be testing how far a boundary can be pushed.
The reason matters. But so does accountability. Perhaps that is the balance we sometimes lose when discussing modern discipline.
We should try to understand why a child behaves badly, but understanding the reason does not remove the consequence. Children have to learn that their actions affect other people.
Firm boundaries, meaningful consequences
Positive reinforcement has a place here. We often notice children most when they do something wrong.
The child who disrupts the class receives immediate attention; the child who has spent an hour trying hard to control his impulses may pass unnoticed. Sometimes a simple acknowledgement matters.
“I noticed you stayed calm today.” “I know that was difficult, but you handled it better.” Even in my encounters with adolescent patients, I have found that recognising small efforts can change the tone of a conversation, including conversations about taking medication or following treatment.
Repeated criticism can make a young person shut down very quickly. Being firm while acknowledging what they are doing right often gets us further.
But encouragement cannot be the only tool. When a student deliberately hurts another child, repeatedly disrupts a classroom or ignores reasonable instructions, there must be consequences.
The difference lies in what those consequences are designed to achieve. Humiliation may produce obedience for a moment. A meaningful consequence should help the child understand what happened, who was affected and what needs to be done next.
Sometimes that may mean detention. Sometimes an apology. Sometimes repairing something that was damaged, sitting through a guided reflection or losing a privilege. Accountability and compassion can coexist. I learnt something similar much later as a doctor.
When I was younger, one of my bosses would occasionally pull me aside after a case. Rather than embarrassing me in front of everyone, he would ask me to explain what I had done and why.
We would go through the decisions together. I still knew when I had made a mistake. But I was thinking about the mistake rather than thinking about the humiliation.
Adults are not so different from children in that respect. Still, any discussion about modern discipline that ignores teachers would be unfair.
Teachers need support, too
I was once an educator myself, and I can understand why some teachers now feel caught in an impossible position.
They are expected to maintain order, protect every child, manage increasingly complex behaviours and communicate sensitively with parents, while knowing that a few seconds of a difficult encounter can be recorded and shared without everything that happened before it.
Some parents, naturally wanting to protect their children, may also undermine teachers before hearing the full story. If every correction becomes a confrontation between parent and teacher, children quickly learn that one adult’s authority can be challenged through another.
Teachers need our support too. We have rightly questioned some disciplinary practices of the past. But if we take away old methods, we must give teachers practical alternatives.
Telling a teacher to “be more understanding” is easy. Managing 30 or 40 children while one student repeatedly disrupts a lesson is considerably harder. Schools need clear rules. Teachers need the confidence to enforce them.
Parents need to know that supporting their child does not always mean defending everything their child does. And children need to know something equally important: being heard does not mean always getting your way.
Perhaps the discipline teacher walking down the corridor with his cane belongs to another generation.
I do not think many of us would want to recreate that world exactly as it was. But the need for boundaries has not disappeared.
The challenge is to preserve what was valuable in the discipline we grew up with: responsibility, respect and consequences without relying on fear to produce them. The cane may once have kept a classroom quiet.
What we need now is something harder: children who understand why they should behave well even when no cane is tapping outside the door.
— BERNAMA
Dr Naveen Nair Gangadaran is a paediatrician at Hospital Tuanku Ja’afar Seremban and a committee member of the Malaysian Paediatric Association and Perinatal Society Malaysia.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of BERNAMA)
