❤️ The Truth About Punishment and Regulation ❤️

With Trump’s recent executive order on “common sense school discipline,” many are interpreting it as opening the door for stricter punishment in schools — including corporal punishment in states or districts where it’s already legal.

While the EO does not explicitly mandate or reinstate corporal punishment, its vague language — emphasizing “traditional virtues” and “common sense discipline” — empowers local authorities who already support these practices to lean further into them. That makes the implications deeply concerning, especially for families in regions where physical punishment remains normalized.

So, I sat down with my son’s elementary school teacher to ask if this would change anything for them.

She told me,

“That would open us up to litigation risk.

Also — if a teacher reaches the point of needing to do that, the student should be suspended.”

And I replied softly but firmly,

“If a teacher feels like they need to hit a child,

they are not regulated enough to teach.”

Let me pause here, lovingly, to acknowledge something important:

The urge to hit, yell, or punish is real.

Many adults—parents, teachers, caregivers—feel that urge rise up when a child defies, disrespects, disrupts, or “pushes too far.”

It doesn’t make you a bad adult to feel the urge.

It makes you human.

Most of us were raised in systems that taught us:

👉🏽 Obedience matters most.

👉🏽 Power and punishment are the tools of control.

👉🏽 Without fear, children will run wild, become spoiled, or turn “bad.”

But here’s the truth that science, nervous system wisdom, and body-based parenting show us:

🔥 Children do not need punishment to grow strong.

🔥 They do not need to be hit to learn.

🔥 They do not become resilient by being made small or afraid.

🦋 They become resilient by being co-regulated.

🦋 By having boundaries held with steadiness, not violence.

🦋 By feeling safety and structure, not fear.

When an adult feels the urge to lash out —

that moment is a signal,

not that the child is bad,

but that the adult’s nervous system is overwhelmed.

It’s the untended, often unhealed inner child within the adult who’s rising up, whispering:

💔 “I don’t know how to stay present here.”

💔 “I don’t know how to hold this moment without snapping.”

To those who believe corporal punishment is necessary,

I offer this with love:

I know you want to raise strong, respectful, capable humans.

👉🏽But hitting does not build strength—it builds fear.

👉🏽It does not build respect—it builds survival strategies.

👉🏽It does not shape character—it shapes compliance or rebellion.

None of these result in true emotional regulation.

If you feel the urge to punish or harm, please pause.

Breathe.

Get support.

There are other ways—

ways that help your child grow and help you heal.

You can be the steady nervous system your child needs.

You can set firm, loving boundaries.

You can guide with strength that is not violent.

You can be the adult who breaks the cycle,

who models emotional resilience,

who teaches that big feelings can be held, not hurt.

We are not here to raise broken children.

We are here to raise whole humans.

May we be the adults who remember:

there is always another way.

And it starts, every time, with us.