We were at the pool today, and I have a chance to observe that the Ugandan "toolbox" of parental discipline does indeed contain something other than beatings, or threatened beatings.
A little boy, maybe around 4, was fussing and crying about something. I heard his mother scolding him and telling him to stop it, and threatening a beating. Maybe she didn't feel like bothering or felt like it was too public a place, because she went on to Option 2.
She brought the boy back to the edge of the pool, and told everyone that he was being naughty and Shame On Him. She invited all of the children to join in, and everyone in the pool cheerfully started yelling "shame on you! shame on you!" to the little boy. Some of them expanded on the idea and told him he was a baby and he looked like a monkey, while the mother praised and encouraged the additional insults. After a while he stopped crying, and the mother let him wander away, but several of the children were so excited they kept yelling "shame on you!" at random times.
I went over to speak to Emerson about it, not sure about how he was feeling. Emerson explained "oh, it's not a big deal, he's just crying and there's no reason for him to be crying, so they are making him stop."
Sometimes it's really hard to maintain my cross-cultural open-mindedness. Really, really hard. In fact, I might be all out.
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