Why do people torture their children in hopes of cures?

Post Reply New Topic

Some of them learn their lessons, others do not. Autistic and NT kids are more alike in that matter. It's not a black and white world. Everybody has different thresh holds. Some NT kids, you can tell one time not to do something and they won't do it. Other kids will not do it when an authority figure is around but when no one is watching, they do whatever they want. Other kids don't care at all and will continue the behavior and risk getting in trouble over and over. Autistic kids are similar. Some can be told not to do something, or punished, and they will not do it while others will do what they want regardless. Humanity is not perfect.
Whenever an NT kids refuses to yield to authority, you don't hear anyone say, "he needs to be cured." They say, "he needs to stop hitting, kicking, stealing, lying, whatever," and they go about figuring out what they can do to help the kid stop the behavior. Same for autistic kids. Some are going to be more challenging. Some less. There are no guarantees that every single human on the planet is going to be perfect or can ever be changed so they will be perfect. Perfection is a myth, anyway.

Seems to me torturing someone who is aggressive just leads to more aggression. Who gets more peaceful when they're suffering? I would think that would just cause more fear, anger and distss and lead to even worse behaviours. Pouring bleach down a kids throat and up his bum isn't going to make him respond to punishment. I don't care how low functioning someone is or how hard their behaviours are to deal with, abuse is never justified.
I don't see how punishment is supposed to help either. It's psychology 101, punishment is the least effective strategy for changing behaviour. It most commonly leads to more behaviours because of the feeling of resentment it leaves. So it isn't true that most NT's respond to it.

Completely agree that redirection is better and more effective. Of course we punish criminals, but that doesn't change their behaviours. It makes us feel good, it stops them while we have them in jail, but no long term learning was done, and they often come out worse. They usually aren't afraid of doing the same things that led them there in the first place. I think it's a perfect example of how punishment doesn't work, even if we wish it did.
It's interesting how this thread is playing out. I'm loving all the different issues that are being brought up.

How do you know if anything would stop criminal behavior? What if nothing stops it?

It's possible nothing could, I guess it depends on the case, but that doesn't mean we torture them. I was just trying to use the example to show that punishment isn't very effective.
But the psychology of it isn't just applied to criminals. I studied it mainly in the area of child development, and how it tends to lead to more problems than it solves.

Some people are too mentally ill to even be punished so locking them up is better and who cares if they don't care about their consequence to never being out in the real world again. I am talking about criminals here. It's easier to teach a child in general than it is to teach an adult. Even some kids don't even care if they get punished so no punishment is ever effective on them either. That is also considered a mental illness. I bet those kids are more likely to grow up to be criminals because they do not care.