I don't like it, but it´s okay is I misbehave. Voices of girls and boys from a neighborhood of Bogotá about punishment
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I present a qualitative research study conducted from January through December 2006. Along with eight girls and five boys from a neighborhood located at the east hills of Bogotá, we conducted a qualitative, participatory ethnographic study about their ideas, feelings and attitudes about punishment. Participants narrated events of punishment at home and less frequently at school. Parents punish their children hitting them with objects, spanking, scolding them, forbidding whatever they like or keeping them at their bedrooms. As result of being punished, participants said they feel bad, bored, guilty, angry and confused. They suggest not being hit or humiliated, but rather be telling or explaining about their bad behaviors. However, many of them talked about ideas that justify corporal punishment as an effective mean for controlling children's bad behaviors. Finally, I discuss results within the context of the litrature about the effects of punishment and the policy about ending corporal punishment, and propose some actions with local and institutional actors.