I went to a parochial school. I remember 1 kid who got swatted. Looking back, it would have been fairer and perhaps more effective had the teacher left the kid alone and beaten the living daylights out of his parents.
Hell is for children.
Professional 36-55 years old, white male, born & raised blue collar in NJ, adult life in CO, married 2 kids, two dogs, 1 fish.
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Would you favor sentences for some crimes to include an option of such corporal punishments as caning or flogging?
Yes, by jury decision. (Could a good spanking save institutionalizing someone? Maybe we should find out.) -
Would you like to see corporal punishment allowed in schools again?
Yes - Only with parent’s approval and present. -
Should corporal punishment be used in higher education?
No, unless an actual crime has been committed, such as #1, an option maybe. -
Would justly enforced corporal punishment create more discipline at work?
No, work is a choice. If criminal actions occur, see #1. -
(filter question to check on bias, and also for fun) Do you think that being spanked could be enjoyable?
Who, what, where, when, why, maybe.
I do not believe in the beating of children. I think that physical discipline can be effective and isn’t inherently evil. As with most things: moderation not excess. I once posed this question in GD and was severely slammed. (I was not clear in my OP, so probably deserved it)
Male, 21-35 (30, to be exact)
1) Would you favor sentences for some crimes to include an option of such corporal punishments as caning or flogging?
Yes indeedy. Especially for child abusers/molesters and rapists. Lock the guy up in prison for several dozen years, and while he’s incarcerated, bring the bastard out into the courtyard once or twice a week for an hour or so of “treatment” with whatever implements the jailer feels appropriate. And let the victims themselves get in on the act. If a guy’s kid was molested, let the guy himself apply a few lashes.
2) Would you like to see corporal punishment allowed in schools again?
Only under very strict controls. Parents must be called before the punishment is to be given, and they should have the details of the child’s offense explained to them.
3) Should corporal punishment be used in higher education?
Only if a crime was commited. See #1.
4) Would justly enforced corporal punishment create more discipline at work?
You mean, like my boss could spank/whip/cane me for f*cking up at work? Good lord! I think the threat of a pink slip is just as effective.
5) (filter question to check on bias, and also for fun) Do you think that being spanked could be enjoyable?
DoC
White Male, 36
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Yes
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Yes
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No
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No
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No
I think that I was spanked once by my father, as I remember it. The fear of a second occurance kept me in line pretty well… I don’t remember if my mom spanked me. Gee if she did, I guess that shows how screwed up spanking makes one, doesn’t it?
I was paddled once in Jr High, after a fight. I was the person attacked in the fight, and I lost the fight, but the other person was crying harder before he was paddled than I was after the paddling. (of course, the fact that I broke my hand in the fight probably had someting to do with that… I was already in pain as it was…)
Of course, this is what putting teens in orange coveralls and making them pick up trash by the highway is supposed to do.
Juvenile detention, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be working, as alot of the kids today look at doing juvie time as a status thing (esp. in the gang culture).
Corporal punishment only teaches the child to fear and resent the person who is hitting them. I think it’s ironic that we tell our children not to hit others, that hitting is wrong, and then do the same thing ourselves as punishment.
I went to a private Christian school whose motto was “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” They had the paddle hanging on the wall in the conference room. It was decorated with an “alarmed face” with lines of pain radiating out drawn on it in Sharpie marker. At least once a day, a small child was dragged in there for saying a bad word (which, in our school, “poop” and “heck” were bad words) or for giggling during chapel, or a million other things that were against the rules. Since it was a large, open building, you could hear the whap! of the paddle and the kid’s shrieks very clearly. I suppose the administration counted on the deterrent effect, much as we do with the death penalty, but if anything, it had the opposite effect.
Once, I was threatened with the “rod of correction” myself. My crime? We had gone out to Pizza Hut after a field trip, and I went up to the jukebox to see if there were any good songs. I didn’t play any, but the fact that I TOUCHED the jukebox was enough. My mother was called, and upon arriving at the school heard about the “horrible” thing I had done. Her first reaction was to laugh, and then refuse to allow the paddling. The school inisisted: if they couldn’t paddle me, then she must, here, in front of them. My mother again refused, and was told that unless SOMEBODY paddled me, I would be expelled. My mother said that that was fine, and I think it was that reaction that finally made them give up. I wasn’t expelled, I wasn’t paddled, but I was given a couple of months of detention. I was sixteen years old.
I remember clearly the anger, the resentment and the rebellion that flourished among my peers. When caught doing something, the kids who were punished by alternate means shrugged, grinned sheepishly, and accepted a reasonable punishment as their due. When paddled, I saw real hate in the eyes of these kids. I saw them covertly try to “get back” at the administration. There was an “us-against-them” attitude that was even more pronounced than the attitudes of kids from schools that didn’t paddle.
Paddling is humiliating, especially for someone who’s old enough to drive a car, but almost as much for a little boy who must go back to class with tears of humiliation and pain streaming down his cheeks. While reasoning, and explaining to a kid why what they did was wrong, and punishing them reasonably, a kid learns not to do that again. Most kids are not unreasonable people, but they can become that way by exposure to unreasoable punishments that doen’t teach them a thing except that getting hit hurts, and that when they’re adults they can hit people, too, for breaches in decorum.
But that’s a blanket statement that is not necessarily true. There are many people, myself included, whe bear no resentment to the people who gave out spankings. Fear of future punishment does not necessarily equate to fear of the person. I was never “afraid” of my parents; but I did respect their authority.
I think you are confusing fighting with discipline. We don’t tell our children it’s okay for them to ground the neighbor’s kid, or take away his toys because he was being a smart-alek; yet, parents can do these things in the name of discipline. I think kids in general can differentiate what is acceptable from an adult versus what is accectable from a kid.
Re: your private school experience. I, too, spent several years in a private school that employed corporal puinishment (public school, too, for that matter). My “claim to faim” in this area was the time I got a couple of swats with the paddle for dumping a beaker of water on the head of my science lab partner. I can’t speak for all the children, but the experience for me, and for the people I hung with who had a similar experience, was that getting the swats was a badge of honor. The loud “pops” coming from the hallway was a source of much good-natured ribbing. We ragged each other about it, and even tended to brag. My paddling came at the hands of the baseball coach, so I know he had a good swing! Deterrent? Not much of one, I guess, but even then I’m not sure that too many wanted to repeat the experience.
I’m only posting this because you seem to be making some blanket statements about what will happen to a child who is spanked, and how humiliated he will be, etc… This may be the case in some instances, and I can’t counter that it was the case in your experience. But your opinion does not necessarily extrapolate to a universal experience.
I haven’t read all of this thread, but I want to chip in:
We were ed as kids, and it was not a bad thing, WHEN:
it was done not in anger, in a lashing-out manner. My mom was very good at doing it in “cold .” It was obvious she was not doing it out of any personal anger at us as people, she didn’t leave a mark, and there was a discussion about what we had done, and why she felt it necessary to go to this step. She always hugged us afterwards, to emphasize that it was the actions she didn’t like, and not us. None of the four of us have any resentments about this method.
It was when (rarely) my dad would strike out at shoulders without warning that caused the fear and cowering.
I really feel that kids at say, 1 or 2, or 3 years old like my second brother just will not respond to something other than some physical attention-getting. And you bet I’d a kid for running out in the street, etc. I personally know a kid who is most likely brain-damaged and possibly retarded because he yanked away from his sister at the age of four, ran out in the street, and was hit by a car. That’s a consequence I’d do almost anything to avoid.
- No
- No (I’m a teacher)
- No
- No
- No comment
PunditLisa posted
‘I remember 1 kid who got swatted. Looking back, it would have been fairer and perhaps more effective had the teacher left the kid alone and beaten the living daylights out of his parents.’
I think many ‘difficult’ pupils are put under terrible pressure, or given a dreadful example, by their parents.
We had regular canings at our school. It was usually the same few boys. It didn’t seem to change their behaviour.
There was frequent bullying too, but of course we didn’t say anything about that to teachers (who beat us).
As someone said ‘Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like’.
- Would you favor sentences for some crimes to include an option of such corporal punishments as caning or flogging?
NO - Would you like to see corporal punishment allowed in schools again?
partially, if the parents agrees to the punishment - Should corporal punishment be used in higher education?
NO - Would justly enforced corporal punishment create more discipline at work?
yeah, right! that would be the day. Maybe when we are a comunist government and we didn’t have a choice of our workplace! - (filter question to check on bias, and also for fun) Do you think that being spanked could be enjoyable?
It is, if it is in fun between you and your SO;)
Feel free to offer any additional comments as you see fit.
crap!
I’m under 21 and female…
Female, age 19.
- Would you favor sentences for some crimes to include an option of such corporal punishments as caning or flogging?
Absolutely not.
- Would you like to see corporal punishment allowed in schools again?
**No way, Jose. **
- Should corporal punishment be used in higher education?
Nope.
- Would justly enforced corporal punishment create more discipline at work?
No, it would create more people not working, though. If someone were to BEAT me at work for missing a deadline, I would quit.
- (filter question to check on bias, and also for fun) Do you think that being spanked could be enjoyable?
I love being spanked lightly.
For the record, I was abused as a child, fairly severely. Therefore you can understand my special aversion to violence. Having experianced it closely at a young age, I can honestly say that being spanked, being beaten, being humiliated in front of others, and generally being mistreated does not teach you to respect authority. It teaches you to live in fear. It teaches you to avoid such discipline at any cost.
I am also against the death penalty as well.
My answers and demographics actually are the same as headshok’s although the comments do not apply to me.
:: shakes head ::
Sorry … white, male, 47.
Be aware lawoot that Eve may not be tall enough to state such an opinion (ie I think she left out the [sarcasm] tags).
Male, 35.
1) Would you favor sentences for some crimes to include an option of such corporal punishments as caning or flogging?
Yes, but only if administered by a female guard in high heels, televised. Especially in women’s prisons.
2) Would you like to see corporal punishment allowed in schools again? I think both teachers and students should be free to return fire.
3) Should corporal punishment be used in higher education? Only on the faculty. Every time they are unprepared for a lecture, we brand the soles of their feet.
4) Would justly enforced corporal punishment create more discipline at work?
Yes, just the other day one of my temps failed to smooth a wrinkle over the pocket while ironing my pants. I had him buried in mud up to his neck and I have to say the others have certainly had much more attention to detail ever since.
5) (filter question to check on bias, and also for fun) Do you think that being spanked could be enjoyable? What, you mean just plain, without nipple clamps or anything?