Debate- Enlgish Literary Week 2007

This was my debate speech for the english literary week 2007-

Good morning everybody. I am Manas Jha of class VII- G and I will be speaking against the motion on the topic ‘Spare the rod, Spoil the Child’.

In this era of rapid development, surviving has also become a challenge. Not just a bachelors degree, but good etiquettes, manners and discipline give you an identity in the society, and an edge over the others. These manners are not like chapters of a book which can be learnt at any point of time, but they are habits which either develop in us at a very young age or never. These manners are taught to us by our parents, sometime by the use of words and sometimes by breaking a few cricket bats. Yes, getting scolded and sometimes getting beaten up is also an essential stage in our life. But one question must be arising in your mind after getting scolded that why do the parents hit children. Actually, when the children are young they don’t have the maturity to differentiate between good and the bad, and feel that whatever happening around them is the right thing to do. They also have fun in the act and continue to do it, whether it be good or bad. Their parents, being matured and knowing the depth of the world, explain their children about the right things and the wrong, and sometimes when the children don’t follow there advices then the parents get enforced to use strict and stern means. When children are scolded or scared at one act, it leaves an impact in the child’s mind that if they do it again then they would get a scolding again and so they stop doing it. It is that child’s environment that makes him adapt to it, and do whatever is happening around him. Let’s take a simple example of the school, where small activities like fighting or stealing if not controlled at a very young age let on to create bigger cases such as smoking, drinking, gambling and eventually spoil the child’s life. I guess even children would feel bad about the ‘cruel’ tasks of there parents but their parents are there own well- wishers and they always want the good of their children. And eventually even you all would get to know that avoiding those few scolding could have ruined your life! So after these 2 minutes of speaking, we conclude that ‘Spare the Rod, Spoil the child’ should be reconstructed to ‘Spoil the rod, but don’t spoil the child’.

Thank You
-Manas Jha