Exercising Authority On Children Essay

How parents raise their children is one of the most contributing factors in how the child will turn out. Childrearing may determine their future behavior, motivations, and personality. The question of how to exercise authority over, or discipline, a child also greatly affects the child in terms of how the child will view certain aspects of their lives.
In this paper, I argue that the basis for drawing the line between valid and invalid forms of exercising authority on children lies in how the different forms affect the childy. Using Jurgen Habermas’ concept of performative action and communicative reason, I want to show that valid forms of exercising authority, such as disciplining through communication, benefits the child more than invalid forms of exercising authority, such as corporal punishment or physical violence, which has the possibility of affecting the child in a more negative way.
According to Jurgen Habermas’ perspective, language is a medium for coordinating action. In communicative action, speakers coordinate their action and pursuit of individual (or joint) goals on the basis of a shared understanding that the goals are inherently “reasonable” or “merit-worthy”. Branching out from this concept comes communicative reason. Communicative reason is a theory which describes human rationality

Regarding punishments and disciplining, using communicative and performative action to make the child understand what their mistakes were, rather than physical and verbal abuse, is a more sustainable method of exercising authority because the communication between the parent/elder and the child will allow the child to see themselves through the gaze of the other, and will make them want to remain their true selves and refrain from repeating the same mistake