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While officially banned since 2019, ordinary educational violence – such as punishment, humiliation, spanking – is still widely used by parents in the education of their children. Why does this violence persist? What are the alternatives ? The answers of Dr Stéphane Clerget, child psychiatrist in Paris.
These are numbers that send shivers down your spine. According to an Ifop barometer for the Children’s Foundation, “79% of parents have resorted to ordinary educational violence (VEO) on one of their children the week before the questionnaire“. Two-thirds of those questioned even admit having used it at least twice and about half, three times. Sometimes even without knowing it.
What is ordinary educational violence?
Ordinary educational violence includes all violence against children, which is considered “legitimate” because its purpose is to “educate” children. There are different kinds:
- physical violence such as spanking, slapping, beating…
- psychological violence, such as blackmail, mockery, humiliation…
- or verbal abuse, such as shouting or insults.
Why is this violence still too trivialized when the “anti-spanking” law of 2019 prohibits it and reminds us that the education of the child must be done without violence?
“On the one hand, we notice that this happens more among young parents, who reproduce their education and find it more difficult to take a step back from it. Then, there is also a whole discourse of pseudo-pedagogues who encourage the use of firmness and more severity, faced with the phenomenon of child-tyrant or child-king“analyzes child psychiatrist Stéphane Clerget.
Less spanking, more screaming or blackmailing
Nevertheless, the study highlights the fact that the use of corporal punishment tends to decrease and that psychological violence remains far too common. Indeed, according to the study,more than half of parents yell at their children, 42% make promises in exchange for good behavior and 46%, on the contrary, deprive them of something in case of disobedience“.
Educational violence, little known?
Finally, this survey teaches us that ordinary educational violence is not well known to parents, nearly a third of whom have never heard of it.
Moreover, for half of the respondents, uttering threats, blackmailing or depriving their child or isolating them for a few moments to calm them down are not violent acts. Half of the respondents also admit that they are not sufficiently informed on the subject and are asking for tips to help them.
“Ordinary violence falls within the framework of impulsiveness. And people do what is easiest when faced with a crisis situation. When they face their child after a busy day at work, fatigue, sometimes a toxic dose, violence takes over. explains Dr. Clerget. “Current parent-child relationships have also changed. Before the group of siblings meant that the little ones were also taken care of by the older ones, the parents were not always obliged to intervene. From now on, parents with only one child are doing less well, paradoxically”.
To help them, Dr. Stéphane Clerget pleads for more practical information, which would be delivered to them in the health book for example or via booklets distributed at birth. “In general, it is necessary to limit the time spent in front of the screens as much as possible. Children are real electric batteries after” also advises the doctor.
As for the Children’s Foundation, it calls on the government to include the fight against OEVs in a major education plan for parents and all childcare professionals, with “clear and readable recommendations” to help parents to set limits and benchmarks for their children.