Bessie's intuition brought her to the place where, as a parent, she knew how much she taught through her actions. Parental figures teach. They do. We do. From this discussion, we found that the kind of teaching differed and the message taught differed greatly depending on the type of teaching being done.
Most parental figures tell themselves that they teach primarily through language. That may well appear to be the manifest way they teach. They do use language. The latent way they teach and the latent message they communicate and teach may well be at great variance with what they think they are doing manifestly and want to do at all.
When our child does something we consider wrong, we act in a negative way to stop that action and prevent its reoccurrence at some other time. We think we do that with language in the same way we believe the consequences we make up as a preventative measure, "no desert," "go to your room," a swat with some force, and all that arsenal, actually communicates in a positive way to the child. It's a consequence after all, and children must know about the consequences of their acts to make sure they don't repeat those mistakes. However, the students and I discovered from the discussion above whatever we make up and choose to use as a consequence has no actual link to the action that motivates us as parental figures to make that choice. What then are we teaching if not consequence?
Before we can tell that, we need to see what we actually choose when we call something a consequence when it doesn't really work that way. It certainly doesn't feel that way to a child.[12] Many of my students remembered their childhood confusions in this regard. When we make that choice, no matter how gentle or non-violent we may think it is, it works as a punishment in the eyes and heart of our child. Whatever we choose as a consequence will always feel to a child as a withdrawal of or, even worse, the removal of unconditional positive regard. That removal, be it with the most gentle of punishments like time out or far more violent punishments, like a spanking, the child will always feel the terrifying sting of rejection. If any of us feel rejection, we certainly also feel a loss of unconditional positive regard. Once we see and feel that loss on the child's part clearly, we know that what we offer as teaching is not primarily through language; children don't hear much intellectually when they feel rejected. Our manifest choices for consequences actually and inevitably serve as punishments. If we punish in order to get obedience, because we certainly don't get understanding from a child who hurts, what can we understand as the latent but quite tangible point of this form of teaching?
Fear. When we teach with a method that we feel our child will not like, "to teach the child a lesson," we do so because we intuitively feel, and also remember from our past, that the child will remember the consequence and not do that disobedient thing again. When they fear the punishment, they won't do the thing that calls for punishment. That might work to some extent. Fear may produce a quality of obedience, but it may well produce many other effects that as the loving parental figures we actually feel we would never wish on our child.