Beating Children

[The Grand Nudger]

[fr0d0]

Wait... Can't see a bloke with only one partner??

[Jackalope]

Sorry, I just don't believe you can justify smacking a child anywhere on their body for any other reason than to save their very lives or from a painful accident. (ie. Shell B's water incident or in the unlikely even of Rhythm's grenade scenario ... you get the idea)

I can only speak from my own 9 1/2 years of parenting experience, as well as my experience of being a child myself. From my own perspective, I agree with what you're saying here - but also acknowledge my knowledge is limited to my experience.

My own son is a wonderfully intelligent, compassionate kid with a well-developed sense of the difference between right and wrong. I hope that's a result of good parenting. He's old enough and intelligent enough to listen to reason. When he makes mistakes, we talk. I talk, he listens, I hear what he has to say, and we talk through the situation. Yes, he often offers up the typical excuses a child his age will give, and when that happens, I make it clear to him that he's old enough to "man up" and take responsibility for his actions, good or bad, and that he'll earn respect for doing so.

I've never spanked or hit him in any way, nor can I recall ever yelling at him. Despite this, I know that he's afraid that I will get angry with him - which I think is a result of his mother's (my ex's) parenting style. As far as I know, she has spanked him on one occasion (a decision I do not agree with, as it was done out of frustration rather than to prevent a dangerous situation), and I know that her temper gets the best of her at time. His mother is his primary caregiver. This, I think has conditioned him to fear his parents' anger in response to mistakes - which I think is unfortunate. Better to adopt good behavior for it's own sake rather than out of fear.

By no means am I a perfect parent, nor am I qualified to criticize other non-abusive parenting styles - I have found that for me, understanding and speaking to my child's capacity for reason is a better choice than force or fear.

[Stucky]

I can only speak from my own experience as a fathe of five, grandfather of five, police officer for n40 years that investigated child abuse and President of my school board of education.

From the time my children were toddlers I let them know what is wrong to do in their activities, such as if they went to an electric outlet, I immediately went to tehm, said no firmly and removed them from the outlet. If they continued, I did it once or twice more but if they continued, I lightly patted their hand when they reached for it and removed them. I did this over and over increasing the force from a light pat to a gentle slap each time and when removing them trying to interest their mind in something else. Eventually they got the message, some of my kids earliet than others but as they grew up, I very seldom had to punish them by spanking, but I did once or thrice.

I saw the outcome of many types of child abuse and there is a line between corporal punishment and abuse and that line is not only physical evidence of abuse but also mental evidence of abuse. Abuse is not just physical.

In our schools we did have "paddling" as corporal punishment, but it was after parents had agreed to it and the student had the choice of a paddle or in school suspension. You'd be surprised how many took the paddle. There were always witnesses to the paddling (parent and teacher or teacher and counselor) and never more than three swats with a paddle and never on bare skin.

My kids turned out fantastically and so did most of our students. We even had kids from bad city schools and neighborhoods that turned out good after coming to our school.

[Shell B]

Paddling pisses me off. There is no way around the fact that a paddle is a weapon. If we absolutely had to employ corporal punishment as a means to get kids in line at school, their parents should be called to do it with their hand, though even that pisses me off. I do realize that some kids come out of it okay, but there is no way to tell which ones will. I would have a teacher's head if they hit my kid. Of course, that is different if the infraction is physical. For example, if my kid decided to go all bully on another kid, I would expect a teacher to break it up physically, if necessary, but not beyond what is necessary to stop another child from getting hurt.