INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

7 AUGUST 2000
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Today we have the opportunity to listen in while John Lampen talks with a group of boys between the ages of 11 and 19 at Shotton Hall* in the 1970s.

Talking about Right and Wrong

J.L. If you think about my baby Francis ... or your own first baby ... and you want them to grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong, how would you start teaching it?

A.S. What age d'you mean?

J.L. That's one of the things that's puzzling me. When should you start?

P.T. About two or three. Up to that time let them go their own way.

S.R. I don't know but I should think the first thing you have to teach your baby, or show him it's not right, is when it dirties its nappy.

I.F. That's not wrong. I mean, when it's still in nappies, you can't teach it to cock its leg up, can you? What it does in its nappies isn't wrong. I think when it starts walking you can start teaching it — as far as you can go with a baby. I mean when it goes near a fire, you give it a mild form of punishment for going near a fire, and as you punish it, you use a catch-phrase; and you go on using that catch-phrase (as a warning) till it is old enough to understand totally.

S.R. I didn't mean you start before it's reasonable to show it that wetting its nappy is not the thing to do.

J.L. It's certainly true that most people learn to keep away from the fire and not get burnt; there's much more guilt about the toilet training. I think S.R.'s right, that many people do start there, with the toddler perhaps rather than the baby, and they do make him feel bad "Oh, you’ve done it again!"

L.D. You're not actually teaching the baby what's right and wrong, but what you consider to be right or wrong. It's different for each person. Apparently S.R. thinks it's wrong for a baby to wet its nappies, and I.F. does not. Who's to say if your opinion's right?

N.K. I think that it's more important to teach the baby about not going in the medicine cupboard and not putting its hand in the electric fire (as once did) than about its nappies.

J.H. If I had a baby I think the first thing I'd want to teach it is not to do what I did wrong. I'd show him what happened to me, to learn from.

J.L. I don't want to shoot you down; but I think you'd find that you have to stop him doing lots of things, for safety reasons, and perhaps even punish him, before you could explain very much to him.

J.H. If he did something rotten, I might smack his hand or something. I mean he'd understand a smack and he might not understand if I said "I once did that and my fingers got caught."

I.B. I don't think you can teach him right and wrong at all. I don't think the child appreciates a difference between right and wrong until a much later age. What you're trying to do is set up a cause-and-effect idea in his mind, "Do this and you'll get smacked." Right and wrong come in about the age of eight, and even then they're not clear concepts in the abstract.

J.L. But we weren't talking about the definition of right; we were talking about how the child learns what things are right or wrong to do, and that surely is much earlier.

I.F. The young child doesn't learn right and wrong, he learns self-preservation. He knows if he goes near that hot object which is so fascinating to look at, he'll get smacked.

J.L. How do you explain the fact that even two-and-a-half year olds feel very guilty about some things? Even if their parents have tried to bring them up not to feel too guilty.

S.R. Do you think it's right for the parents to make a child feel guilty about things?

J.L. What do you all think? If a child keeps running out into the road, and you can't convince him it's unwise, should you try to make him feel a "bad boy" for doing it?

I.B. It depends on what you think he should grow up into. You don't want a neurotic adult who cannot cross the road. You don't want to put it too deep into his mind. You want to establish a cause and effect as I said before. Then he learns to anticipate the effect (your blame or punishment) and does nothing to cause it. I think you have to be very careful about making children feel guilty.

J.H. When you feel guilty is when they ask you if you've done it, and you say No; and you just stand there feeling guilty that you didn't own up to it. When I did something wrong, I'd either get belted, or my mum would say "That's it," and just walk off. She'd leave me, you know. I'd try and go after her and say "Sorry," and I'd feel really bad about it. I think that was worse, because it is a more long-term punishment, just sitting there.

S.R. I think what makes J.H. feel guilty is when he's been punished before, and this time he's not. He'll begin to wonder why it's not happening this time.

D.G. Then it's his own stupid fault (i.e. he could own up).

S.R. I feel guilty about something, and know I'm going to for a long time. The silly thing is it's something I didn't do, but got punished for. I still feel guilty about it.

J.R. I feel guilty when I've done something, and I'm not found out.

J.L. Is it the fear of being found out, or something more?

J.R. It's like punishing myself instead.

J.A. If I do something wrong, and I'm not found out, I'm all pleased with myself, not guilty.

J.L. It sounds as if you're talking about things you don't really regard as wrong — like breaking a rule you don't believe in. If you were running with a knife in your hand, and you skidded on something and the knife went into someone, you might feel guilty even though it wasn't completely your fault.

J.R. I might feel guilty about it.

J.L. "Wrong" can be used in two different ways, "against the rules", and "what we feel we shouldn't do". (Pause).

I.B. It's obvious to me that physical punishment isn't the most important thing. That's when parents talk down to a child, and deliberately try to instil a feeling of guilt in him. A slap goes the opposite way; it's the consequence of his action, and is accepted, and the thing is over.

D.B. I think the best punishment is embarrassment — making him feel embarrassed when he's done something wrong.

J.L. Isn't that rather a cruel punishment?

D.B. It makes him really feel he's done wrong.

S.R. If a child's done a relatively slight thing, like leaving the tap on so the basin overflows, something like a slap's the right punishment because it's quick. If he's done something worse, his punishment should last longer. Some kids think: "I can get the cane (at my former school) and it will be over in a couple of minutes."

D.C. If a child lets the sink overflow, depending on his age, I think you should get him to clear up the mess. That's the worst for him.

J.L. In one way it's not altogether the worst; it gives him the chance to feel good again after he's cleared up, doesn't it?

P.T. If a dog makes a mess you should rub his nose in it. 

[Several : That's not a good way to train a dog.]

P.M. It isn't the puppy's fault it makes a mess ... or the baby's really. So you've got to train it, not make it feel bad.

J.R. The worst punishment you can get is guilt, because you're inflicting it on yourself. if you're selfish you won't think much about other people punishing you; but if it's yourself ... you can't get away from it.

I.F. The guilty feeling follows you, even after you’ve been punished. It stays with you. But it may go if you've cleaned up the mess. But otherwise it clings.

J.L. I'd like to suggest something that may be wrong, just to see what you think. Doesn't it depend on the parents? If they always make their little kid feel bad, feel guilty, feel hopeless, then whatever he does when he's older, he'll feel guilty about it. But if they always offered the child a way out, and accepted his help to put things right, then he needn't think guilt is a hopeless thing.

I.B. I used to get the first; I bust two little china ornaments when I was about two, think, and I still get it thrown at me.

J.H. If you do something wrong and go to prison, when you come out people still talk about it and you still have a guilty conscience.

J.Y. I think you feel guiltiest when you're young. There were things I did when I was younger ... when something brings them back to me I remember feeling a lot guiltier about them than about things now. That's because the guilt was built up by my mother. It depends how things are at home, it's personal really. You don't feel so guilty about things when you go to school, you can always say "it's only the school rules, everyone tries to get round them."

J.L. If you break something through clumsiness, which isn't exactly wrong, would you prefer to be In a family where you get a clip and a "Take that for being clumsy!" or instead the remark "Look what you've done! Idon't know where I'll get another! You've really upset me."

L.D. I'd sooner get a quick clip than a parent trying to brainwash me, and making me feel guilty every time I do something on my own.

J.L. Putting together what several of you have said, you don't think getting hit is the worst sort of punishment?

J.Y. I do. It's the worst because it doesn't really work in the long run. And it's based on pain and fear.

I.B. You suggested two extremes (when you mentioned this breakage) neither of which will produce satisfactory children, adolescents or adults. One produces guilt-ridden people and the other produces people who are only influenced by the risk of getting caught. Neither of these ways is satisfactory. But somewhere there must be people practising satisfactory methods.

J.L. Right. And this brings us back to where we started. You said that one starts with the safety of the child. But how does one go on? If my two-and-a-half year old finds his mother's handbag. He can't go shopping, but he knows what money's for. He thinks, "I'll take all of this, and that'll mean sweets". He's got no more plan than that. What should my wife do?

J.H. Go and get him some more sweets, so he has some.

P.T. Let him keep just a bit of the money.

C.D. Tell him, if he wants sweets, to come and ask for them, not to take them himself.

N.B. I'd punish him, to teach him not to take them and then ... But not say "No sweets today."

L.D. Give him a short sharp punishment like a clip round the ear, then when he stopped crying, explain to him that he had done wrong in taking the money, get him to help you with your housework, then take him down the shop and get him some sweets. Tell him it's for helping you with the housework that he's got the sweets.

J.L. Are you making an issue of "right" and "wrong" out of it?

L.D. If he upsets my purse because it's fun to watch shiny things rolling on the floor, that's not wrong. But you said he knows what money's for. Now you have to teach him the right way to get money (by helping).

D.F. If you do something that means he gets his sweets, you may get an upstanding honest little twat in the end but he's also a spoilt little bastard.

J.L. That's not a fair criticism of L.D.'s suggestion; he was suggesting something for a two-year-old. His approach would change as he got older perhaps.

[J.H, think P.T. and G.D. are right; let him keep the piece of money he has in his hand, and tell him to ask next time.]

J.L. Allright. But next week he finds a pound note, and tears it in half, one for himself and one for his friend, as another of my children once did, so it doesn't seem to have worked. What do you do now?

J.H. I let him find out that pound's no use now, so he'll learn. 

P.M. Give him so many sweets that he won't eat no more.

J.L. Like some fathers, if they catch a boy with cigarettes make him smoke the whole packet! (Laughter).

I.B. You should show him the consequences of tearing the money in a simple way, like being unable to buy the dinner.

J.R. If you give the child sweets after he's tipped the purse out, he goes on doing it to get more sweets. He must learn it's wrong, or it will happen again, like you said. L.D.'s way's much better.

S.R. Years ago, I stole 6d. from my mother's purse. The way they punished me was, I sat in the middle of the room, my father sitting in front of me, my mother behind me, I had to sit there till, you know, I owned up to it.

J.L. Did it help you?

S.R. ... Just made me feel resentful. I did it again straight afterwards.

J.P. If you give the child what he wants, he'll do it again. Give him something he don't want, yes? like a sweet he can't open, or a lump of salt that tastes horrible, and he won't do it again.

L.D. There's a problem about that. Let me go back to the example of the electric fire. One day he plays with it and gets punished. The next day his mother's out of the room and he plays with it and nothing happens. The next day he's there again and gets hit, because she sees him. He'll very quickly learn that he's not getting punished because he plays with it but because he gets caught.

J.L. This is why parents try to make children feel guilty, isn't it? Because the guilt will work even when mum's away.

N.K. It's pretty obvious that you are punished for being caught, not for what you do.

J.L. But the object in bringing up a child is to build in something that stops him doing certain things at all. Even burglars train their children not to get caught. You may say that's enough, until it's your wallet that gets pinched. And people must learn not to kill, not simply not to get caught when they kill — otherwise we're all in danger.

N.G. If you pinch a penny and don't get caught, you go on and take another, then more and more, up to pounds, and you become a robber, and get sent here. That's what happened to me.

J.L. Do you wish you had been caught?

N.G. Actually I got caught loads of times. But that never stopped me. 

D.B. Another type of punishment, if the child plays with the fire is to let him get burnt.

J.L. Can you take the risk? in small things, yes. You might let him pull the cat's tail. But one reason why parents slap kids is to give them a shock that's not quite as big as 240 volts.

J.F. You've got to explain what the fire is for, and what the danger is.

I.B. When you try to put things across to a child, you must look at your own behaviour. If you try to make your child do something that isn't one of your own priorities, he naturally feels let down. A lot of upbringing is bribery. What you should prove to your child is that you think it's equally important for you. Your own standards count a lot. For example, if dad says "Don't touch the fire", and a minute later stirs it up with his own boot, he's being irresponsible.

J.Y. It's very hard for a small child not to believe his parents, because he's got nothing to measure their advice against. Later he learns to see through them.

J.R. I used to be like N.G. I pinched something; and if someone found me out, which they hardly ever did, I would pinch something else to get revenge on them. You want revenge if they make you feel very bad or very small.

J.L. If L.D. had been your father, he would have tried to find a way out of it for you, so you could get your spending money in the end without feeling bad.

J.R. That would have been different.

J.L. I think a lot of youngsters who steal don't really believe they can get it an honest way.

J.H. I used to steal before I came here to get excitement – I was bored.

P.M. I didn't steal before came here. (Cries of "it's too easy here" "it doesn't get punished enough").

J.L. It may be too easy here; but I don't agree that more punishment in the strict sense would make a difference. Remember what N.G. said? He got punished all the time, and it didn't stop him.

S.R. I stole before I came, but this place stopped me.

N.K. I agree with S.R. I think with stealing, if you find you can't get what you want one way, you try another.

D.I. When I was at my other school I thought I would take two pounds from one of the teachers. I put it in my pencil case. She said "What do you have in there?" and I said "A pencil sharpener". Then she opened it and there was the money. She only told me off.

D.B. When I was about eight, I had some lunch money and I didn't spend it at school. I spent it on sweets. When I came home, I came face to face with my mother, and ... no money! I got a thrashing.

J.L. Was that the right treatment?

D.B. I don't know... it taught me.

J.L. Most people here who have had this difficulty are like N.C. and S.R, Grown-ups tried to deal with it in ways that didn't help them at all. I think that when we have to face this problem with a boy, you as a group, are usually very understanding, because you know from your own experience that a person needs a way out of the difficulty which makes him feel by the end that he's made up for it. Some of you sometimes think it makes it too easy for the person involved. But think about owning up: often people are glad to own up and sort the thing out. But when they find it hard to own up, that isn't because we have severe punishments. It's because they feel so guilty. I don't mean the normal guilt that anyone might feel, which helps you to put things right. mean the paralysing feeling of being hopeless and bad, so that you feel you can do nothing right; it even makes some people go straight off and do something else wrong. This guilt is the problem we have to help them overcome.

* Shotton hall, a community school for fifty intelligent emotionally disturbed boys. 

This extract from Thinking about Conscience, a Shotton Hall Publication, Harmer Hill, Shrewsbury, England,1974

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