Parshas Bechukosai describes how Hashem gave us the Torah on Har Sinai, “between Him and Bnei Yisrael.” The Ropshitzer Rov zy”a explains these words as hinting at the rachmanus Hashem has on His people, the Yidden, using the mashal of a father who has to chastise his son for a wrongdoing. A loving father takes care to protect his son from being publicly embarrassed, making sure that no one sees him reprimanding the child. Meanwhile, in front of others, he only speaks well of his son so that no one should guess that anything was ever amiss.
So too, Hashem sometimes has to chastise us for our wrongdoings, but the warnings He gives us beforehand and the consequences of our misdeeds are all kept private, so that the nations of the world should not gloat.
The Ropshitzer also notes that keeping everything just “between Him and Bnei Yisrael” enables Him to overlook some of our failings. Otherwise, the nations could claim that Hashem is chas veshalom not being consistent or fair. Meanwhile, in front of them, Hashem only sings our praises.
We must learn from this how reprimanding children should look. When reprimanding a child, we should never add shame to the punishment, and we must take great care to ensure that no one finds out that a child had to hear a rebuke or be punished. The same applies to teachers; even when a child misbehaves, he doesn’t need to be rebuked in front of the class. Rebuking him in private will have the added benefit of letting the child know that you are making sure he won’t be embarrassed before his classmates. Often a child will understand and appreciate the fact that you’re concerned for his dignity even without it being pointed out to him.
It’s also important to avoid issuing warnings about punishments unless we are sure we will go through with them. Often, a parent threatens a consequence for a certain behavior and later on, doesn’t want to follow through because something changed in the meantime and the threatened consequence is no longer relevant or fair. A parent (and anyone, in fact) must be consistent, and only by having forethought can we prevent such things from occurring.
