VIJAYAWADA : Is there a sudden change in your child's personality? Has the child suddenly developed sleeping disorders? Does your child resort to malingering by complaining of pain or sickness? Has the child become disinterested in everything, most of all, studies?

The answer to all these questions can be obtained by studying the methods being used for disciplining children in schools, says city-based paediatrician P.S. Rao.

Dr. Rao is studying different punishments given to children in schools and their impact on the minds and bodies of the children. The study gains significance in the light of two recent incidents in the city in which an eleven-year-old girl reportedly hanged herself when her family insisted that she went to school and in another a boy immolated himself.

Harsh punishment is the primary reason for children to develop `fear of school,' says Dr. Rao. Though none of the schools admit to the use of punishment to discipline students, teachers often resort to punishing children in different ways. The list of punishments being used in schools in the city reads like a veritable list of punishments put down in the `garuda puranam'.

Fear of school

The punishments fall into two main categories - those causing physical pain and others, which humiliate the child. Traditional punishments like the painful `goda kurchi' (the child is asked to maintain sitting posture using only a wall to support his back) and `mottikayalu' (being hit with knuckles on the head) are being used quite commonly even now according to the study.

The children are also beaten up with wooden rulers, sticks and canes.

The list of humiliating punishments is longer. In the less severe punishments, the student is asked to leave the class, stand on bench, kneel in front of class or school assembly, sit on the floor, sit by the dustbin.

And more severe punishments are: the child is made to remove the shirt and stand on the bench. This happens even in co-education schools. While the boys are made to do it, the girls are let off with a threat.

The goal of a third category of punishments is to `terrorise' the child, Dr. Rao says. The name of the student is either written on the board or sent to the principal. In one school, the smaller children are frightened with the threat of being locked up in a darkroom. Fining and `writing imposition' are also common.

Other interesting facts that have been brought out by the study are that `masters' (men) choose more severe punishment, while `teachers' (women) only scold students. Most of the children do not consider scolding a punishment. But some find scolding humiliating when other children laugh.

The brighter children are more sensitive to all types of punishment and children who are beaten by parents at home are less sensitive to physical punishment in school.

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