Sociological Analysis Of Parents' Disciplinary Phenomenon

Human society is concerned about family violence and family education, which brings about a debate on parental punishments. There are many vague notions between being loving and being strict, how to appreciate children and punish them, whether to adopt a democratic or autocratic way, so that parents as educators have no idea what to do to discipline as well as cultivate their children by meeting their children's personal needs.Based on the theories of power and social control, this research aims to find out a clue to the transformation of parental punishment in history, thus exploring into the meanings of pedagogy by analyzing those phenomena as well as problems of parental punishment at the contemporary time.The human society has undergone different forms of social structures from the ancient times to date, In a general sense, the state sovereignty goes from autocracy to democracy, so does the family structures as a social unit with every member in the family stand equal rather than dependent. As values change from training " obedient people" in the old age to "public citizens" in the modern age, families divert from fostering "liberal individuals" other than "filial offspring". Therefore, parental punishments adopt new methods under the auspice of laws and regulations. Parents should apply more restricted and softened ways, but not a casual and severe way. It is when the children themselves learn the self-discipline and the internalization of social values that education works.Chapter One introduces the research background, meanings and methods, simultaneously making a general description of the previous researches on this subject. Chapter Two observes the connections between politics, culture and family education in ancient times, with an analysis of the linking between parent punishments and social controlling in the feudal societies. Chapter Three analyze the theories on which parental punishments depend by taking a respective of education's function of social controlling. Chapter Four illustrates parental punishments in modern families by giving some cases, revealing the strategic legalization of power practice, and proposes a more pedagogical parental pattern. Finally, Chapter Five concludes the process of this research.