Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1091, Punishing Children.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1091.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Go to our website at eslpod.com.
Become a member of ESL Podcast.
Take a look at our ESL Podcast special courses, which you can download immediately.
No waiting.
As soon as you buy them, you can download the audio files and written materials.
This episode is a dialogue between Yuki and Al about what to do when your children misbehave, when they don't do what they're supposed to do, and you have to punish them.
Let's get started.
I'm getting ready to give Charlie a spanking for beating up his classmate.
He has to learn that there are serious consequences for his actions.
You're punishing him for beating someone by giving him a beating?
That doesn't make sense.
Our response shouldn't be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
I'm not going to beat him.
This isn't going to be a flogging.
Corporal punishment isn't the answer.
We can give him a severe punishment without resorting to violence.
Withholding his allowance or taking away his toys?
Those don't seem severe enough to me.
That still doesn't seem to be enough.
All right.
We can pull out the big guns then.
We could have him spend the weekend with your mother and ask her to talk some sense into him.
He's scared of your mother.
I'm scared of my mother.
Do you think it would work?
If I were a 10-year-old and I had to face your angry and disapproving mother for an entire weekend, I'd be quaking in my boots.
Yuki begins our dialogue by asking Al, What are you doing?
Al says, I'm getting ready to give Charlie a spanking for beating up his classmate.
A spanking S-P-A-N-K-I-N-G is the practice of hitting a child with your hand or some other object on the child's behind, on the child's rear, on their butt, the part they sit down on.
This has long been a traditional way of punishing a child, of indicating to the child that what they did was wrong and giving them something to think about if they try to do it again.
I'm not arguing.
I'm not saying spanking is right or wrong.
I'm not a child psychologist.
I can't answer that question.
But I can explain what the practice is, and it's something that parents, at least when I was growing up, would do to their children to discipline them, to punish them.
Al is getting ready to give Charlie a spanking for beating up his classmate.
To beat, B-E-A-T, up, means to hurt someone physically in a fight.
Charlie, it seems, beat up his classmate, another one of the students in his class at school.
Yuki says you're punishing him for beating someone up by giving him a beating?
To punish P-U-N-I-S-H, as we mentioned earlier, means to do something to someone to discourage them from doing it again, or simply out of a sense of philosophical justice.
Once again, we won't go into the arguments about punishment.
Yuki says that Al is punishing Charlie for beating someone up for hitting someone by hitting Charlie.
She thinks this is not very logical.
In fact, she says that doesn't make sense.
Our response shouldn't be an eye for an eye, a tooth.
This expression, which comes from the Bible, means that you respond to someone who does something bad to you by doing something equally bad to him or her.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth might mean literally if you take out my eye, I'll take out your eye.
But in general the term means getting back at someone or getting even with someone by doing something bad to that person, who did something bad to you.
Al says, I'm not going to beat him.
This isn't going to be a flogging.
A flogging F-L-O-G-G-I-N-G is a very serious physical punishment where someone is usually hit with a stick or a rope, often on their back, as a punishment.
There aren't any places in the United States at least where you would get a flogging.
In fact, you'd probably be arrested by the police if you gave your child a flogging.
Al is saying he's not giving Charlie a flogging.
He says instead, I'm going to give him a simple spanking, meaning not a serious spanking, not seriously hurting him.
But Yuki doesn't agree.
Yuki says corporal punishment isn't the answer.
Corporal, C-O-R-P-O-R-A-L, refers to the body.
So corporal punishment is physical punishment, punishing someone's body by hitting them, for example.
Yuki says we can give him, meaning Charlie, a severe punishment without resorting to violence.
A severe, S-E-V-E-R-E, punishment is a very strong punishment, a significant or major punishment.
Resorting to something means turning to something or choosing to do something when you don't have any other options available.
At least that's what we...
I had to resort to violence when the person on the street started attacking me.
I didn't want to hit him, but I had to.
I had to resort to violence.
What Yuki is saying is that we don't have to resort to violence.
We have other choices.
We can choose other ways of punishing little Charlie without hitting him.
Al says, what kind of punishment?
Withholding his allowance or taking away his toys?
That doesn't seem severe enough to me.
To withhold W-I-T-H-H-O-L-D something means to prevent someone from having something, especially having something that the person expects to have.
To withhold your love would be not to give your love to someone who might be expecting your love.
If the company you work for withholds money to pay your taxes, that's money they don't give you in order to do something with that money.
And in fact in the United States, if you are an employee, the company you work for will withhold taxes from you.
Al is talking here about withholding Charlie's allowance.
A-L-L-O-W-A-N-C-E.
An allowance is money that is given to a child on a regular basis, often once a week or so, sometimes in exchange for or because the child does some work around the house, sometimes simply so that the child has some money to buy things with.
When I was growing up, there were no allowances.
In fact, even if you worked around the house and you were expected to work around the house, you would not be given an allowance.
I never heard of such a thing, even for most of my friends, but it is quite popular among parents nowadays.
Al thinks that withholding his allowance or taking away his toys would not be a severe enough punishment for Charlie.
Yuki says we could ground him for a month, only allowing him to go to school.
When a parent grounds, G-R-O-U-N-D-S, his or her child, the parent is punishing the child by not allowing him or her to leave the house and sometimes even to leave their room other than to come down and eat and to use the bathroom.
Usually however, grounding refers to telling a child that he or she cannot go out and play with his or her friends, that he or she has to stay at home, other than, of course, going to school.
But Al isn't convinced.
He says that still doesn't seem to be enough.
He doesn't think that's a sufficient punishment to teach Charlie not to go around beating up his classmates.
Yuki says, all right, we can pull out the big guns then.
The expression to pull out the big guns G-U-N-S means to do the most powerful, forceful thing you can do.
To do something or to use some instrument or tool.
That is the most powerful you can possibly think of.
In the case of punishing Charlie Yuki says we could have him spend the weekend with your mother and ask her to talk some sense into him.
Yuki is suggesting that Charlie spend the weekend with his grandmother Al's mother and have his grandmother talk some sense into him.
To talk some sense S-E-N-S-E into someone means to persuade someone to agree to something, especially someone who doesn't seem to be acting rationally or logically.
To convince someone to change their way of thinking is to talk sense into someone.
Yuki says that Charlie is scared of Al's mother.
Al says, Do you think it would work?
Yuki says if I were a 10 year old and I had to face your angry and disapproving mother for an entire weekend, I'd be quaking in my boots.
Disapproving is when someone is not pleased with your behavior or your performance.
Yuki is saying here that If she were a 10-year-old boy like Charlie and she had to face, that is to be, with Al's angry and disapproving mother for an entire or complete weekend, she'd be quaking in her boots.
To quake, Q-U-A-K-E, In your boots, B-O-O-T-S, means to be very scared, to be very frightened.
Boots are large pairs of shoes that go over your feet, especially when there is rain outside or snow outside.
To quake here means to shake.
So to quake in your boots would be to be so scared that you are shaking, your whole body is shaking.
And that's the idea that Yuki is trying to convey here that going to Al's mother's house for the weekend would make the 10-year-old Charlie rather scared and would be a very severe punishment for him.
Now let's listen to the dialogue this time at a normal speed.
What are you doing?
I'm getting ready to give Charlie a spanking for beating up his classmate.
He has to learn that there are serious consequences for his actions.
You're punishing him for beating someone by giving him a beating?
That doesn't make sense.
A response shouldn't be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
I'm not going to beat him.
This isn't going to be a flogging.
I'm going to give him a simple spanking.
Corporal punishment isn't the answer.
We can give him a severe punishment without resorting to violence.
What kind of punishment?
Withholding his allowance or taking away his toys, those don't seem severe enough to me.
We could ground him for a month, only allowing him to go to school.
That still doesn't seem to be enough.
All right, we can pull out the big guns then.
We could have him spend the weekend with your mother and ask her to talk some sense into him.
He's scared of your mother.
I'm scared of my mother.
Do you think it would work?
If I were a ten-year-old and I had to face your angry and disapproving mother for an entire weekend, I'd be quaking in my boots.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
