When is discipline extreme

There was loud banging at the door. “Open up!” My brother screamed desperately. I am still not so sure who finally opened when he burst in saying he had just found the body of one of the neighbour’s boy’s dumped along one of the pathways that led to our dilapidated government houses.

Many years later, I can still feel the anguish that engulfed our small neighbourhood. The young man who had been brutally murdered was the younger child of his mother’s two boys. For some reason he had turned out to be a real rascal and menace. He was involved in every wrong activity and at the peak of it all he would threaten or perhaps even beat his mother if his demands were not adhered to.
Recently, there was a heated debate about a father with seemingly extreme discipline measures to contain his young teenage child.
Many castigated him. In the same month another story ran of a boy who has been terrorising his entire family including his younger siblings plus threatening to beat his mother.

Once again a parent is caught between a rock and hard place situation. At which point is discipline necessary and where does it become extreme? If a 13 or 15-year-old can refuse to be told what to do including refusing to go to school, what should a parent do? At which age does one exercise hardcore discipline?
Can we afford to send children to the naughty corner and say that will sort them?

In the digital age we are in, what does a parent do when the phone becomes the life and centre for a child? Whether we like it or not, parenting is upon us and it is a lot more than simply getting pregnant and carrying a child. It is bigger than carrying that child home. It is a lot more than providing food and school fees.
The parent must dig deep. We must be involved and we must be present. We cannot delegate, especially to the househelps, care takers, teachers and matrons.
To raise a child means we must get down and get dirty. A child is a sum total of many experiences and each parent must creatively be part of those experiences.