He was getting out of control. The last few weeks, he was getting out of hand. The constant winnings, the incessant buggings, the cheeky defiance was slowly taking a toll on his parents. We knew he was just being difficult for the sake of doing so.
Having already shouted at him once in the car over the weekend as he kept bugging his mother about frivolous matters and just basically being a pain in the neck with the constant whining, I gave a lashing at him and told him to just shut up as he was distracting me to the point it was impeding my parking
Of course we made up, but little did I know a few days later, he would once again rile us up, this time, misbehaving at our Community gathering – once again whining, once again feeling bored and just disturbing his mother. We tried to control him. I knew he was bored, but we didn’t have much items on us to bring to keep him occupied either and pretty soon we found ourselves with a challenge to contain him to the point after the event, when I offered a hand to pack up, the priest jokingly said “its okay, he’s already 2 hands full for you!” I felt bad and also annoyed at the little one’s behaviour.
It didn’t get any better. I though the journey home, I could set him straight and give him another lashing. But instead, because we had to drop a couple of folks back, he ended up becoming rowdy and uncontrollable. It was downright embarrassing for me, but because I was behind the wheel, I couldn’t do anything except to just bite my lip and just drive, with me fuming inside and just waiting for the opportunity to give him a good beating. I couldn’t take it anymore. His behaviour was atrocious and I knew he was just being defiant and not listening to his mother despite repeated calls to “sit down” and “dont move around, we’re driving!”
And a beating he did get. I had never been more physically aggressive with him than I was with him, so much so even my own hand started to hurt. I was so furious with him that he needed a shock of his life to get it out of his system that what he did today, and how he treated his mother especially will NOT BE TOLERATED OR ACCEPTED.
Towards the end as he went to bed, crying of course the whole time while he took his shower and I dressed him up for bed, I felt a sense of sadness and guilt in my own heart. I knew it had to be done, but I wonder how do I instill such discipline to my child if I dont smack him or hit him – I hate hitting anyone and to hit my child was not only painful for him, but also for me. I do hit him so to jolt him out of his stupidity and nonsense behaviour – so that he realises he is misbehaving and he is hurting people around him.
As i close my reflection, I realised I shouldn’t have hit him. Or maybe not hit him so hard. The sensory nerves in my hand is still tingling from all the smacking and hitting he got tonight. But to me, its also a reminder to me – to never hit my son like that again. At the end of the day I want him to be better. For that to happen, I need to be better.
