If I ever did this to my mum...

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My mom used to have "line up time" where when got home after misbehaving; we all lined up and got beat with a wooden or plastic spoon. She would go wild with the spoon too. It got to the point where she would just have to threaten you with "line up time" to get you to behave.

Then again, she would also throw phones, cups, spoons, and a fork once (I ducked and my brother got it right in the forehead), so she's a little nuts too.

 

Is your surname Trunchbull by any chance?

 

No, it's not.

 

...and that's the quintessence off the whole vid!

I agree that this is mostly her fault! She was not firm enough with him! And he exploited this "weakness" all the way! It's already to late to redeem that.

If he was mine, I would've beat the crap out of him every single day until some sense came back into him. Even if it takes months!

Way back when I was a in school! It was common sense for the teacher to deal out slaps and straps on the backside. I really wish they re-introduced this into the classrooms today!

Children that misbehaved were always spanked way back and none of them became mentally a Fred Krueger. Why stop with something that worked since the dawn of mankind.

Todays activists and society is nuttier than ever!

 

That's not discipline, then, Chandos, that's obviously and clearly abuse. There's a big difference between a solid spanking and hurting a child so that a trip to the doctor is necessary. Equating the two is a favorite technique used by activists but is neither accurate nor fair.

Meaning that the context of a situation of discipline (not one of obvious abuse) is totally missing. But some of these activists view anything that they wouldn't do as abuse. I contend that letting a child get away with anything is abuse as well.

And that's the thing, Aldeth, you kids likely wouldn't need strapping. What happens today is there are some absentee parents who refuse to discipline their kids at all, and then pitch a fit when someone else is forced to step in and do it. 50 years ago a child knew that to lip off a teacher meant a strapping at school and then when he got home his parents would also punish him. Now the smug little buggers get away with anything because the parents won't back up the teacher, and then turn around and wonder why the kid isn't learning anything.

And when I say "discipline" I don't just mean the strap, I mean kicking the kid out of class or something else. "Oh, he groped a girl in your class? Well, she was probably asking for it, Mr. Depaara. I mean, boys will be boys, right? You had no right to kick him out for that, it's minor! He needs your class to get to college."

"Mr. Jones, your son's average in my class is 45%, and his average in all of his core subjects is 43%. He's not going to college anytime soon. It would help if he actually completed assigments and stopped assaulting other students who are trying to do their work."

"Oppression! Discrimination! You have it in for my poor little baby!"

"Your poor little baby is 240 pounds and has 3 juvenile offender convictions at 15 years of age, Mr. Jones."

"I'm talking to your principal!"

I'm not saying you're like this Aldeth -- from what I've read on these boards you're level headed. But let me tell you, there are some parents who are so clueless about how to do the job (as Chandos mentioned) that they totally screw it up and then have the temerity to blame EVERYONE but themselves.

 

I really don't think Chandos was trying to say that...

Parents who care about their kids are going to do everything they can to protect their children's future. Even if they deserve what they're getting. It's a fact of life, LKD, and it isn't going to go away. Any teacher that hits my kid - unless it's in self defense - had better be prepared for me to hit them back. With my lawyer.

 

It's one thing if it's the parent. I still think that no teacher should hit a child - and thankfully, you don't hear that much anymore (probably because the teacher would likely be fired). It's all well and good to blame poor child behavior on poor parenting, but that doesn't mean we should make up in the classroom for what is lacking at home, especially when it comes to hitting.

 

I do not know how old the brat is, but most people in my family agree with the Jewish saying:
"Show me the boy at five and I will show you the man"

If you don't catch the bad behaviour while the child is still young it will be hell to redirect as they age.

My mother and I have lived alone together for most of my life, I was as good as gold as a child and the problems between us have only really arisen because she has difficulty accepting me growing up and half the time I don't get on with my step-dad.

I can empathise with the feeling of not being listened to but his behaviour is completely unacceptable. If I dared to raise a hand to my mother we'd be locked in combat to the death!

If I'm able to have children I'd do my best to respect them and treat them CONSISTANTLY. I do not agree with the philosophy of ignoring bad behaviour, as much as I disagree with rewarding scarce good behaviour with treats which happens in schools (school trips where the naughty children are given the opportunity to do more than the children that are consistantly well behaved.)

 

Ok, a lot of responses since mine, so here goes.

Gnarff, the Bible also says: "Raise a child up in the ways he should walk and when he is old he will not depart from it." I think that's the more applicable one for this. This is the parents' fault far more than the child's.

Chandos, congrats on the kids, that's an achievement to be proud of. I have never actually heard anyone suggest that spanking was necessary, nor that it was the only means of discipline, but rather that it is an effective option and a familiar form of discipline to most. As for my criticism of parents being their child's best friend, I have no problem with that itself, but rather with how frequently 'best friend' is allowed to supplant 'parent'. I certainly hope you are parent first and best friend second. From your description of your girls, I'm guessing that's the case.

Joacqin, yes, bad parenting is nothing new, but we're seeing an epidemic of it these days.

Aikanaro, I agree that hitting is a poor substitute for parenting. Just like peanut butter is a poor substitute for a meal, however, it can still be a good part of it.

Aldeth, Dr. Spock was popular and influential well into the '60s and I think '70s. Additionally, this isn't the first generation that had this problem, so maybe we are seeing the grandchildren rather than the children.

Holy generalization, Boy Wonder! Talk about taking something out of context. No where did I say these are the only three types of parents, but rather that these are the three most common types of parents to result from the previously mentioned parenting techniques. Nor did I say this was the only reason they may be raised so. Some parents just plain don't give a crap.

Barmy, preach it!
I intend to get more into that in my summation.

Decados, it is primarily the liberals that teach you should be your child's best friend first, should never hurt your child, and in some cases, shouldn't even discipline your child at all.

Aldeth, I agree with your sentament entirely. The parents should be the primary authority and any school discipline should be designed to fit in with that (within reason). If that means a list of kids who can get spanked and a list of kids who have to be put in the corner or the like, then so be it.

Chandos, and this kind of leads into my summation, there is a huge difference between using physical force to discipline the child and being physically abusive. The first produces pain when (or shortly after) the child breaks established rules, but causes no lasting damage. The second is rarely associated with any rules at all, but even when it is, goes far past the discipline stage and into the revenge/sadistic/in-need-of-anger-management-training situation. This is why parents used to be told "Never spank your kids when you're angry". Spanking a child when you're angry is begging to loose control and become abusive, or at least far too severe. Instead, cool down yourself (and make the kid wait in fear while you decide his fate ) and decide with a calm mind what appropriate discipline is. This sadly seemed to largely disappear when the liberals started blaming spanking for all of society's social woes.

Good parenting means (but is not limited to) establishing set rules to govern a child's behaviour and punishments if they break those rules. It means sticking to the rules and punishments while also considering possible extenuating or aggrivating circumstances. Children test boundaries all the time, and they need those boundaries to be reinforced. At the same time, never think your child is either stupid or can read your mind. They are independant individuals that can look around and figure things out very quickly, but don't know nearly as much as you do.

A good example of this is my wife. When she was a child she was a regular devil, yet she didn't generally break the rules, but rather sidestepped them. For example, if told not to draw on the walls with crayons, she would use markers, or water colors. She even went to the point of sucking all the black ink out of black construction paper and used that. When she used one, her parents would tell her not to do it again and she wouldn't, she'd move on to the next. Her parents didn't punish her for doing things they hadn't forbidden, but rather forbade her doing it again.

As for what kind of discipline works, as has been mentioned many, many times, it all depends on the situation. Spanking and the like tend to be very effective in most cases, but not all. For example, it worked fine on me, but not so well on my brother. He has wonderful pain tolerance (seriously, this guy is freaky), but he never had a lot of patience, so sitting in a corner for 30 minutes was torture. I, on the other hand, had patience coming out the wazoo, so the corner was't very effective for me, but spanking was. Other things included loosing toys if they were left on the floor, loosing TV priviledges (or computer priviledges today), video games, allowance money, etc. I would shy away from the emotional manipulation (I don't love you, guilt tripping, etc.), but showing them the consequences of their actions can be priceless. If the child has created a mess, make them clean it up. If they know how much work it is to clean it up, they may not make the mess again in the first place. As I mentioned earlier, if my brother or I left toys around the house, my parents would pick them up and put them in a bag in their closet. We got them back at the end of the week. Later on, we got them back if we payed our parents for them (5 cents a piece I seem to recall). After a little bit of this, we didn't leave them out very often.

I think the most important part, however, is consistency and reliability. Don't punish the child for things you haven't told them not to do and don't make exceptions if you're too lazy. Don't spank if you told the child he or she would be sent to their room, and don't send them to their room if you threatened a spanking. If they ask about the rules, give them good reasons for them, and if they debate the rules, listen to them. You don't have to agree, but do consider. Think about it like court. The judge can't just make up laws as they go, nor can they just make up punishments, but they can consider the situation, weigh the evidence of both actions and intent, and in some cases even waive the rules if the situation is a clear exception or if the rule is out-dated and doesn't apply any more.

 

By issuing sanctions that are ineffective or easily circumvented a teacher is undermining himself. The most important thing in making sanctions work is the backing of the principal for measures taken.

I know of people who went to court over disciplinary measures in school. Their angelic six-foot-five bodybuilding darling in an exchange with a girl said something what could be understood as a threat of rape. It doesn't matter whether it was serious or just silly influence of German rap music. Anyway, the parents felt that a reprimand with an official hearing was exceeding the teacher's authority. Parents who idolise their little ones have a hard time accepting that they did something that was other than godly. They lost their case in court and had to pay the costs. That I predicted (and in doing so I became sort of an evil person for them), but people tend to only hear what they want to hear. They still fervently believe in them having been right and that a grave injustice was inflicted on them. Nonsense. The teacher was right, the response measured. And fortunately (iirc) she had the backing of her principal who stood with her.

 

That is what I do not understand from the people advocating violence against children. I can to some extent understand if you get really angry at your child and you grab it or shake it a bit but to strike your child in cold blood? I don't get it. We have had this discussion before and you don't strike your co-workers when they misbehave do they? Why would it be illegal to beat adults but not children? Can you tell me that LKD? For hundreds of years they beat dogs and was sure it was a good way to rear dogs but lo and behold nowadays the experts claim that hitting your dogs isn't very useful and might even be counter productive.

Violence feeds violence and I do not have any numbers but I am sure that people who got systematically "spanked" while children are overrepresentated among violent criminals.

 

Children are different than adults, joaquin. That's a given that is so blindingly obvious I won't delve into it further.

A spanking is not a beating. Nor is a cuff upside the head to get the attention of a child. The stats can say what they will but you can find plenty of happy, well-adjusted adults who were physically reprimanded (not "beaten") who get along just fine with their parents. As I said before, hand-wringing, second guessing liberals will never make me stop using common sense.

Note that I am not saying this is the only way to raise a child. I am simply saying that if it is part of a parent's technique that is not in and of itself always a bad thing.

Today, teachers can no longer strap a kid. 100 years ago they could. Near as I can tell the world kept on turning. I value my job so I wouldn't strap a kid these days. I would also, today, call my own lawyer if a teacher strapped one of my girls. My point was that if parents don't support ANY of the discipline techniques a teacher uses, the kid will learn nothing good and the teacher's will get burned out. There are other consequences I'll get to later.

By the by, I myself don't spank my children. They know that I'll follow through on my warnings of other punishments and so it is not necessary. But all kids, and all parents are different -- I wouldn't dream of telling another parent how they should discipline their kid, I would only tell them that it is clear that they are NOT doing it (or at least not doing it very effectively.)

 

Actually joacqin spanking (i.e., swatting a child on the butt in a very controlled manner) is far safer than shaking. Shaken baby syndrome is a major cause of death and neurological damage in the US.

 

I have yet to hear anyone that wasn't himself a child argue that you shouldn't discipline your child at all. Anyone with half a brain realizes that raising a child without any limits would be ridiculously stupid.

While it's probably true that a majority of the people arguing that you should never hit your child under any circumstances are probably liberal, a majority of the people who advocate strapping your child until his butt turns purple for forgetting to look both ways when he crosses the street are probably conservative. Neither of these extremes come even remotely close to real-world liberalism or real-world conservativism, so why on earth are we applying partisan labels to parenting? Real-world conservatives and real-world liberals raise their kids the same way, for the most part.

 

I saw this one coming T2, I of course didn't mean "grab and shake" as in taking a screaming infant and shaking him until he stops screaming but if my future kid did something really bad I can see myself in anger grabbing him and pulling him towards me which probably shakes him up a bit.

That is another thing, you who rile against laws forbidding physical punishment for childrne where is the line between a "gentle spanking" (am I the only one who is getting naughty thoughts by the word spanking?) and abuse? If you make it legal you open up for everything. Is it legal to slap your child? Slap him hard enough to break a lip? A nose? Where do you draw the line? Most parents punish there children one way or another but making violence against children equal to violence against adults is one of the best things the western world has done. You can scar a child with any kind of punishment and I am sure that you can "spank" a child to good effect but where do you draw the line? How should the courts differentiate between a "spanked" child and a beaten child? Why should children be the only creatures that it is legal and ok to strike?

 

I tend to agree with Tal here. There is a huge difference between a spank that's just forceful enough to get the child's attention (used sparingly of course) and an actually beating, which I would define as physical contact that leaves a bruise or beyond. Hitting a dog on the butt with a rolled-up newspaper is effective because it doesn't actually physically harm the dog in any way, yet creates precisely the same reaction in the dog as a closed-fist punch would: "Whoah sh*t, whatever that was it was scary and unpleasant - I won't do THAT again!" Same principal with a kid. A non-bruising, open-palm smack on the behind* sends the message to a child that their behavior is unacceptable, but it's the parents responsibility to sit down with the child and explain why Daddy spanked your bum bum. That helps ensure the behavior won't be repeated. Any physical contact beyond this however is IMO as excessive as it is unnecessary.

* Which is to be used AFTER the child has ignored warnings from the parent not to continue whatever behavior is making Daddy cranky.