2011 22
Should you scare your kids into good behavior?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Paternity with No Comments
Do you live in a culture in which people believe it is fine to occasionally scare children with things like this so they behave? I know in Germany there are also characters that are meant to scare children into good behavior, like a bad Santa helper that punishes bad kids, Knecht Ruprecht, or long nailed Struwwelpeter. We don’t have those scary characters in Latin cultures, nor in USA.
When my Leo misbehaves I say “only good boys get to play with the iPad” 🙂
You can see other frightening illustrations from Norwegian children’s books here.
Struwwelpeter in a 1917 edition – Via Wikipedia
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robin on July 23, 2011 ·
The implication being? (those images were beautifullly drawn, by the way)
That having bogeymen in the culture have some dark effect on the people?
You missed one huge bad guy you will find embedded deeply in the psyche of almost everybody in Latin cultures, and in the USA (not only these places though).
This bad guy is often blamed for heneous, horrendous crimes that most people wouldn’t think a human being capable of. The people who commit these crimes somehow think that this bad guy made or told them to take these evil deeds, whether they be murder, violence, abuse or brutality.
The belief in this bad guy is buried deep in people’s belief systems. So much so that his name unconsciously finds its way into many culture’s language when expressing disbelief or similar. Yet, he and his counterpart of goodness, of light and forgiveness (even he gets pissed off every now and then and punishes people for doing the wrong thing), are mere figments of peoples’ imaginations. It’s a convenient and simple “black and white” dichotomy that children and the uneducated (most important!) can understand.
Yes, you guess it: the good/evil dichotomy of your own culture is so omnipresent that you missed the biggest bad guy of the lot!
Martin Varsavsky on July 24, 2011 ·
I have 4 kids who are doing very well in life and I am against scaring children for them to behave.
robin on July 25, 2011 ·
Martin writes:
I have 4 kids who are doing very well in life and I am against scaring children for them to behave.
Pretty hard to disagree with that! I’m one behind you on the kids front, and am appauled at the negative effect that most human religions has on our childrens’ ability to see the world they live in clearly.
It seems pretty unfair to single out the Norwegians and Germans when you’ve got old Nick to deal with everywhere else!?
Michael on August 11, 2011 ·
Martin,
be careful, don´t you have a German wife ?
Things have change in Germany since 1917….;-)))
Cheers
Michael
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Alvaro on July 23, 2011 ·
We don’t have those scary characters in Latin cultures, nor in USA.
That is essentialy non true. What about “El sacamantecas”, “El hombre del saco”, “El coco”?
Martin Varsavsky on July 24, 2011 ·
Alvaro I was not aware of these characters. They were never part of my upbringing in Argentina. I guess I was wrong.