Handling Indiscipline Involving Children at Home and Schools: A Restorative Justice Perspective to Unlearn Violent Behaviours in Zimbabwe

Disciplining childrenChildren using restorative justiceRestorative justice approaches can be one way of contributing to building peaceful societies in Southern AfricaSouthern Africa. This article explores restorative justiceRestorative justice approaches to disciplining children within the endogenous systems of the Ndebele society in Bulawayo, ZimbabweZimbabwe. The researchers Ntombizakhe and Dorothy argue that using violent means by adults (parents and teachers) at home and schoolSchools to enforce disciplineDiscipline among childrenChildren gives rise to outcomes of violence, with children becoming violent in their adulthood and impeding the creation of sustainable peacePeace. Data for this study were collected through focus group discussions. Three focus group discussions were held with ten teachers, ten parents and twelve learners previously trained in conflict resolution by the Alternative to ViolenceViolence Project, a peacebuildingPeacebuilding programme. The study reveals that violence is a learnt behaviour, which can be unlearnt as childrenChildren and communities learn and adopt non-violent practices from traditional endogenous practices of curbing indisciplineIndiscipline at the family and community level. The article concludes that parents and school authorities should be empowered and encouraged to cultivate restorative justiceRestorative justice strategies for redressing indisciplineIndiscipline in childrenChildren. If homes and schoolsSchools adopt restorative justiceRestorative justice approaches to handling indiscipline, the same constructive ways might be cultivated in communities and at the national level for sustainable, peaceful communities.