A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer

1826 Words8 Pages

Thousands of people discipline their children everyday, but some of them don’t know that they are actually abusing their child. Even though some parents may abuse their children by beating them and hitting them, disciplining a child is not the same. Disciplining a child allows them to grow and learn what is wrong and right. It also allows a kid not to be out of control and harm others. The meaning of discipline is the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, by using a punishment to correct their disobedience. The meaning of abuse is to treat a person with cruelty or violence regularly or repeatedly. This shows a difference between the two because it gives the true definition and explains what both words really mean. …show more content…

The book is about a real life experience that happened to the author Dave Pelzer. In the book, the mom thinks that she is just disciplining her child, but in reality she is abusing her kid. When her child would not listen, she would punish him in many different ways. One way she would “discipline” her son was by making him hold his hand on the hot stove, so that he would be burned. Another way she punished him was by playing the gas chamber game. As said in the book, “Out of all Mother’s punishments, I hated the gas chamber game the most.” (Pelzer, 109) This punishment was abuse because she would lock him in the bathroom with a bucket full of a mixture of ammonia and Clorox, so that he could clean. She would then put a towel under the door so that the fumes could not get out, and Dave would be trapped with the fumes. Doing this made it almost impossible for Dave to breath. One other way Dave’s mom would punish him is by making him sit in baths of ice for so long. These actions that his mom took, were all ways of abuse whether she knew or not. Dave knew that his mom’s actions were incorrect, and even said in the book, “My relationship with my mom drastically changed from discipline to punishment that grew out of control. It became so bad a time, I had no strength to crawl away even if it meant to save my life.” (19) This just shows how not knowing how to discipline your …show more content…

Not all adults may be meaning to abuse their children, they just might not know exactly how to discipline their children. There are many ways to incorrectly discipline you children that would be taken as child abuse. For example, the stories of Adrian Peterson using a switch, and the different punishments used in A Child Called It. There are always many effective ways to discipline and punish children with out physically hurting them. Some examples are time out and counting down from five. Also parents shouldn’t always just punish children for what they do wrong, but reward them for what they do right. When rewarding their kids, they should make it a fun way that the children would want to behave better so they can get the reward. Lastly, parents should discipline their children to allow them to grow and learn what is wrong and right. Disciplining children allows them not to be out of control and harm others. It also helps them in the future, when it comes time to discipline their own