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5 MAT THEW AGIUS LAST week 's call by family minister Michael Farrugia for a complete ban on corporal pun- ishment, raised a few eyebrows seeing as it had already been prohibited in an amendment to the Criminal Code in 2014. In comments to this news- room, paediatrician Kevin Borg however said some laws still require updating to bring them into line with the prohibition of corporal punishment. He said Article 154 of the Civil Code states that a parent may be deprived of the rights of pa- rental authority 'if the parent, exceeding the bounds of reason- able chastisement, ill-treats the child, or neglects his education,' and the Criminal Code includes a reference to lawful correction in article 229.' "In light of the 2014 reform to article 339 of the Criminal Code, these provisions no long- er amount to a defence for the use of corporal punishment in childrearing. Nevertheless, they should be amended/repealed to as to achieve absolute consist- ency in law." In February 2014, Parliament passed Criminal Code (Amend- ment No. 3) Act 2014, which amends article 339 of the Crimi- nal Code to effectively prohibit all corporal punishment of chil- dren. Prior to reform, the Code had allowed the use of "moder- ate" corporal punishment within the concept of lawful correction. The 2014 amendment added a proviso to the original section, qualif ying the preceding state- ment by stating that "punish- ment of any kind shall always be deemed to exceed the bounds of moderation." In a research paper which he co-authored with Deborah Hodes in 2014, Borg had ob- served that "although immediate obedience is usually obtained as a result of physical punish- ment, the child does not learn the desired behaviour and thus it has to be repeated, at times at greater intensity, in order to achieve similar results. Physical punishment has also been as- sociated with a number of other negative outcomes including an increased risk of anti-social be- haviour and mental health prob- lems as adults as well as an in- creased risk of physical abuse to one's partner and/or children." The study had collected the results from published research on outcomes of physical pun- ishment and found it to be con- tradictory, making arriving at evidence-based conclusions dif- ficult. "Some still argue that 'no amount of research can under- mine parents' right to act on their instincts.' On the other hand the American Academy of Paediatrics, the Canadian Pae- diatric Society and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have all recommended against using physical punish- ment, especially with younger children, due to the risk of es- calation to physical abuse." The study advises emphasising "oth- er modes of discipline that are equally effective." Describing the change in Mal- tese law as "a very positive step" against violence in children, it warns that the next challenge will lie in implementing this law effectively, whilst bearing in mind that other disciplinary regimes can be equally damag- ing if they turn into emotional abuse or neglect. "The ultimate aim in changing the law is not to increase pros- ecution of parents for minor as- saults, but to create more aware- ness towards children's rights and to create a society which does not tolerate any form of violence," the study explains. So what can parents do to discipline their children? Parenting is a stressful busi- ness and has changed a great deal in the past generation but parents must not allow this to translate into violent methods of correcting their children, ad- vises educational and child psy- chologist Louis John Camilleri. Misbehaviour is often the re- sult of frustration or the inabil- ity to understand rules, Camill- eri explained. "If a child is very young, communicating the fact that their behaviour is not cor- rect must be in line with their level of understanding." "I don't think it [corporal pun- ishment] is the right tool for the task. It should be avoided as it teaches violence as a cop- ing strategy." Moreover, stud- ies have shown that corporal punishment doesn't lead to the correction of unacceptable in- cidents. "It doesn't even stop them." "A little smack on the thigh is only a short-term fix and will cause long-term damage, much like smoking." The aim should be avoiding an escalation, he ex- plains. There is no single technique that can be championed as "the way" to regulate child behav- iour, the psychologist points out. "Old-school techniques, such as placing misbehaving children on 'time-outs' or making them sit on the 'naughty chair' may have some merit with very young children, but are still less effec- tive than positive reinforcement and describing their behaviour to them while pointing out why the behaviour is wrong." "Provide boundaries but then be responsive and explain what the child will gain by staying within them and why you would be disappointed by its crossing them," he advises. "This en- courages empathic and critical thinking." Losing one's patience is going to happen, Camilleri says. "It's not ideal, but its understandable. Corporal punishment is a gen- erational problem – we see our parents and copy their methods. But today we have access to far more information than they ever did." He advises parents to pull out of situations where they are about to lose their cool, adding that once the situation has de- escalated, it becomes easier to ref lect on what caused the chal- lenging behaviour and use this information to prepare for fu- ture situations. "We don't want to create a society where prob- lems are tackled using violence. We want children to question the status quo." A measured re- action to challenging behaviour should actually lessen the stress on the parents in the long run, Dr. Camilleri adds. He encouraged parents to seek out professionals who can help give context to the child 's ac- tions and advise them on how to correct it. The government provides some services for free, including the Child Guidance Clinic (CGC), which deals most- ly with problems of a psychiatric nature, as well as Appogg and Sedqa, which deal mostly with social problems. The Church- affiliated Cana movement also offers a course on parenting skills. maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 17 AUGUST 2016 News Spare the rod, save the child Positive Reinforcement: Positive reinforcement of good behaviour is adding something that will motivate the child to increase the likelihood they will engage in that behaviour again. Examples: A mother prais- ing her son (positive stimulus) for doing his homework or for cleaning up toys (behaviour). Negative Reinforcement: Negative is not to be confused with punishment. Example: Child does the dish- es (behaviour) in order to avoid his mother nagging (negative stimulus), or can leave the din- ner table (negative stimulus) after eating 2 bites of broccoli (behaviour). Positive Punishment: This presents a negative con- sequence to undesired behav- iour, disincentivising it. Examples: A child talks in class (behaviour) and is repri- manded by the teacher (negative stimulus) in front of his class- mates. A child grabs a toy from an- other child (behaviour) and is sent to time out (negative stim- ulus) Negative Punishment: Negative punishment involves the removal of the desired stimulus after an episode of bad behaviour, acting as a disincen- tive. Example: Siblings fight (be- haviour) over who gets to play with a new toy, so the parent removes the toy (desired stimu- lus). The aim of punishment should always be to reduce the undesired behaviour. Re- search shows that positive con- sequences are more powerful than negative consequences for improving behaviour.