Crime & Punishment

Hello, Hello! How is everyone doing today? Don't worry if you don't feel like answering. No one does anyway, so it's cool.

Did that seem passive aggressive? Can we all agree that people that do things like that are the worst kind of people? I mean, what's worse: Someone coming up to you and saying, "Umm, can you stop eating all of my food out of the fridge? I really don't like that, it's my food. Not yours." Or, when someone puts a sticky note on the fridge that says something like, Hey everyone! Just remember that labeled food belongs to the person whose name is on it. Just keep that in mind, K? : )

Which is worse? I vote for the coward that wrote the note. The confrontation isn't fun for anyone, but at least the point gets made, and it's a better result. If someone yelled at me to not eat their food anymore there's a good chance I wouldn't eat it anymore. But, if I saw a note on the fridge written neatly and politely suggesting that people should label food ... well, I'd probably sneak another bite. It wouldn't be nice on my part, but then again I never got any real threat if I kept doing it. 

D'ya see the issue here? Without the proper threat of some punishment, people won't stop misbehaving. People are like pets in that sense.

Dog pees on the rug? You tell him no, that's bad. He'll keep doing it for a lot longer than you'd like. Dog pees on the rug, and you give him a light tap on the snout and say no, he'll stop much quicker. I'm not saying beat your dog, no. that's awful. I'm saying that a little threat of punishment is a good catalyst for good behavior. Why do you think parents used to spank their kids? Teaches the kids not to misbehave anymore. If they do, they'll feel a little stinging sensation on their rumps.

Nowadays, parents don't want to lay a finger on their children. They just say no, that's bad, and put all this trust in a person who's brain isn't even close to being fully developed. Those kids don't get any proper punishment, and they grow up more reckless and misbehaved in school. The misbehave in school enough, teacher tries to yell at them for being bad, child cries because it doesn't understand what punishment is, parent's show up to yell at teacher and protect child. The child will grow up believing that whenever something bad happens to them, they can call their parent's to fix it. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but it can become bad. A child that is too dependent on their parent's to fix their lives will not grow up fully developed emotionally.

People need to learn that bad behavior leads to punishment. It's easier to learn at an early age because then you're prepared for whatever life throws at you. You become independent, and able to work things out yourself instead of bothering your parents. They're busy people too, y'know.

Again, I'm not saying that we should all start beating our kids and pets. Just try to be more effective than a slightly annoyed tone. Let them know that what they did was wrong, and they will figure it out. No one wants to be punished, obviously, and that's why it's effective. Avoidance of punishment is called good behavior.

Let me know what you think about this. See you tomorrow. Buh bye.