As parental figures, we choose to punish the child in our care because we feel that it will teach the child a valuable lesson about life and how to live it. This may not come as a fully developed, entirely conscious choice because of the prevalence of meaning perspectives that motivate or drive or actions. If a choice and action stems from a meaning perspective, we feel but not decide that choice, or we feel a compulsion to make that choice without any questioning or critically reflecting on that choice. Given the severity of such a choice, we might think that we would give it full consideration when we make it. That happens rarely if ever. Very few students and others have told me that they could hit their child, "in cold blood." Indeed, most people have told me, "If I didn't feel angry, I would never hit my child." That being the case, I wonder how many choices we think it wise to make when angry. Our choices made in anger tend to work badly in terms of consequences. When what we do to any person who trusts us and needs us holds the utmost importance, we might stop to think about the consequences of the choices we make in anger. This holds true especially for children in our care. Except that we feel angry. When we choose when angry, we don’t think. That's a central part of the anger deal. We feel a rush of justification for an act we might otherwise not do, but we also feel quite stupid and choice-less at the same time.
In any case, we want or need obedience. We choose to act. We choose to punish. We choose to teach from fear and through fear. What happens? What does the child, the becoming self to do in response?
Whatever else the child chooses, obeys or not, the child will feel fear and will feel rejection. That will happen. Her/his choices will find a powerful basis from those two very real, very tangible emotional realities in that child's being. Given that a child feels trust and wants to feel unconditional positive regard, feelings of fear and rejection create an incalculable impact on that child whatever the choice that follows.
The child may choose to obey.
As parental actors, that's what we think we want or, better, what we feel we want. Does the child agree with the submission she/he has displayed? Did this obedience bring with it a joyful learning about life and how it's lived? My students reported that the children they had known did not show any agreement or acceptance of some lesson. They obeyed and sulked in the process. They offered half-hearted (although students tended to exemplify this with another part of the body) efforts that generally satisfied no one.
One student ordered her child to clean up his room, or she/he would feel the wrath of the parent as a result. How that wrath demonstrated itself doesn't matter so much as the child will feel that wrath, that anger as rejection and a very powerful if not, at least momentarily, a complete withdrawal of unconditional positive regard.[22] In the throes of coerced acceptance, the child worked incredibly hard at getting as little done as possible.
Her/his room was littered with many, many wooden blocks. The child also used a box to keep them in. The blocks were a major part of any clean-up. The child choose to leave the block box in the closet, walk over to one block, pick up that one block, slowly walk back to the block box, and very deliberately and loudly throw the block in the box. At no point did the child overtly disobey, get at all insubordinate, but she/he came as a close as possible. The student reported that when she complained, and the child responded by saying that she/he was cleaning her/his room just like she/he was told. This agonizing foot-dragging procedure could go on for a very extended period. That slow pace could produce something like, "Alright, I will help you," from the parental figure, or it could produce another threat of punishment or an immediate punishment which might get faster obedience but would exacerbate every other aspect of the situation.