I keep forgetting where I am, in that often the obvious has to be made predominate in a conversation or it will be over looked.
I am a firm believer in spanking for reasons stated above, however, I am also a firm believer in using all of the other disciplines in combination with it. One does not spank unless one needs to. One uses conversation, example, the reward system and whatever else is necessary in combination with spanking.
I might think you who do not spank are nuts, but that is my opinion – based in part on the fact that such of you have created, presented and rammed through children’s protection laws that are far too loose to allow, in many areas, a parent to even slap his/her child on the hand. I absolutely resent such laws. No one has bothered to go back and intelligently correct said laws.
I have no problem with my neighbor spanking his child. I have a problem with him taking a belt and beating the kid into welts. I have no problem with my other neighbor using the no hit method, but I have a big problem if it doesn’t work and I have to be exposed to the kids abhorrent behavior.
I’ve pointed out before that I’m aware of many instances where it does not work and have asked what one does then, with no reply.
I have no problem with a teacher grabbing any child if they are not behaving, nor any problem with them getting a firm shake or being marched down to see the principal and physically contained if they try to fight or run. However, as I have learned from young school kids, a teacher cannot touch them, even to grabbing their arm and forcibly sitting them down if they are disruptive.
I think this is going way too far and I blame it on the no hit parents who have enforced this form of restriction. This form of action by a teacher is not child abuse.
If you do not spank your kids and it works for you, great! However, I do not want any of your kind dreaming up laws that will restrict me from spanking mine and don’t tell me how spanking in the home is allowed because people have gone to jail for that in some areas when the kid calls the cops. (Classic example: Richard from survivor -that snake – was hauled into court or jail for abusing his child. It turns out that his kid is a tub, who, prior to survivor, went running with Dad to keep trim. While Dad was away, the kid stopped and bulked up. Dad came home, was pissed and made the kid run hard with him. The kid, pissed off after the run, called the cops, who filed abuse charges against Richard. As far as I know, they were later dropped.)
Now, I don’t know of any kid raised with spanking who would have stopped the daily run that dad told him to do. Oh sure, they might skip it now and then, but they’d keep the weight off so Dad would not be pissed when he gets back. Plus, I know of no such kid who would have called the cops on their own parents for such a minor thing. No kid in my time would have thought about it, but thanks to no hit groups and the media smearing their laws all over the TV, kids don’t consider the consequences of having Mom or Dad arrested.
Just getting caught up. I for one am in favorable of using all the the possible options open to the parent including appling the “board of education to the seat of the problem”, but in IMHO I submit that if you are having to apply the same even 2 or more times aweek, you have a much different problem in relating to the kid! I’m sorry, folks but it ain’t working and ya better find another solution and I mean quick. On the kids we NEEDED to spank, if it was more than once every month or two, it wasn’t the right message. Again quite frankly, I tend to think that a lot of folks nowadays who are pressed for time and can’t take the nesessary actions to relate with their kids take the easy way out with an arbitrary swing! Parenting takes effort and lots of personnal sacrifice of time. Maybe the me-first generation of today doesn’t really spend enough quality time with their kids to understand what form of discipline is approproate. I find myself in the interesting position of agreeing with Satan in that I believe we MUST have the flexibility to use whatever works best with the particular personality we are dealing with. I abhor the idea of kids being beat. But I also believe there are some that need it and the parents are clueless!!!
I understand and share your concern regarding over-reaching laws. I believe abuse should be outlawed. I believe spanking should not be outlawed, my own no-spank position notwithstanding. The problem lies, as always, in the definition of abuse. wring mentioned that nobody convicted of child abuse admitted guilt. This very well may be because some of them were indeed innocent. Innocent people are sent to death row, so I have no reason to believe that the system works flawlessly in child abuse cases. Thus, I agree that often times the system fails, but this is also true about, say, rape laws. Would you say those laws should be repelled too?
You say that you don’t advocate abuse, but on the other hand you described how you encouraged a mother to beat her child until his ass cracked. This sounds like abuse to me. I suppose it was a just rethorical device on your part, but hey, don’t blame me if I am doubtful of that, giving the general tone of some of your posts. If you really want to make us non-spankers aware of a bad law, I’m afraid this type of statements, and there were plenty others, won’t do much to further your argument.
You say that nobody answered your question regarding what to do when a child wouldn’t listen, regardless of what you do. But I think you should answer first to one core objection that you conveniently ignored. You say society is going to hell because kids are not spanked enough. However, the statistics cited here show that most people do spank their kids, and quite often, at that. So, what remains of your argument?
Thank your lucky stars that you’re not a teacher in my son’s school.
I, too, have no problem with other parents who want to discipline their children with reasonable corporal punishment. I, however, choose not to do so, and my son has developed just fine, thank you. His most recent tests place him at the 141 IQ level.
With that said, anyone who chooses to lay hands on my son will be held accountable. You may be able to get physical with my son because you’re bigger than he is, but let’s see you try it with me when I show up at your classroom door and say, “To the office, NOW, tough guy!” I assure you, you will come along, and you’ll be met by the principal, the sheriff, and my attorney.
Anyone who assaults my son will answer to me. (Yes, “shaking” is assault, and battery for that matter, depending on the severity) I’ll use every legal means at my disposal, and I’ll personally insure that the perpetrator is never in a position to assault another child.
I’ve taught my son that violence is not the first recourse. I have also taught him that, if someone physically assaults him, he has every right to protect himself and neutralize the threat. If a teacher should “shake” my son, then that teacher shouldn’t be surprised when he gets a shot in the snout.
And I’ll take my son out for pizza afterwards.
I’ll grant that there are some kids who are unmanageable in a classroom situation. It is not, though, the teacher’s responsibility to “shake some sense into them.” The teacher has other means at their disposal to remove the disruptive student from the classroom.
Pity the poor teacher that doesn’t exercise those other means.
lambda: You said this: “You say that nobody answered your question regarding what to do when a child wouldn’t listen, regardless of what you do. But I think you should answer first to one core objection that you conveniently ignored.”
Why should Far Treker answer your question when every anti-spanking advocate has refused to answer his? I’m not a parent, but I think it’s a damned good question.
Rysdad and other Doper parents: This point has been made by others, but it is worth re-iterating.
You doting parents may think your little darlings are angels on earth – a combination of Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa – but myself and others may think they are fodder fit for Cthulhu. IMO, most parents, especially mothers, cannot be objective about their children, their attributes and their accomplishments.
You boast about teaching your son that violence is not a first option, but then brag about how you are going to hit a public servant. I would suggest you are also giving your offspring lessons in hypocrisy. I would also suggest your over-protective attitude is one of the reasons why Far Treker is right about much of his observations of today’s youth. They have been taught by their parents that Mommy & Daddy will always take their side even if that side is patently wrong.
Finally, spare me the comment about your child’s IQ. You sound like the dipwads in Indiana that place bumper stickers on their cars to brag “My child is an honor student in Charlie Manson’s Asylum of Higher Learning.” As if I and other people give a rat’s ass.
Alright, let’s try this: I imagine, if my child will not obey the usual methods of discipline used, I would have to come up with new ones or stronger variants of the old ones–but almost certainly not violent ones. And what would you do if your child does not respond to hitting him or her? So your child still sneaks around behind your back, and you hit her, and she still continues to disobey? What then? Hit her harder? Do you really want to start going down the path of physical abuse? Eventually, I hope, there will be a point at which you will have to say “no, I can’t hit my child any more, I’ve hit her enough”, and if the child still won’t obey, what then? You are assuming that hitting a child will automatically and absolutely make them obey perfectly, yet no other method would work, which is a hell of an assumption. If you can assume that no non-violent methods will work, why can’t I assume that no violent methods will work? And as long as we’re pretending, can I be taller?
‘Till his ass had a crack running sideways,’ was an exaggeration.
I am not convinced about the statistics for the same reason I don’t hold to the popular psychiatric theories. Statistics have told me that people absolutely love a certain television show, and much later after it ends, suddenly most people hated it.
I accept that a lot of people still spank their kids, but someone had to gain enough support to apply the new laws. If not, then the majority rule of the spankees could easily over turn the restrictive policies teachers have to labor under.
Slight thread shift here. Apologies.
The rape laws were carefully thought out and modified as time went on. The child abuse laws were rammed home in the fanatical furor over child abuse and molestation. Back then, the media and everyone else made it appear that 90% of the males in the US were molesters, potential molesters and 50% of all day care women were the same.
The due process for rape is deliberately difficult and extensive because, as we found out starting less than a decade ago, pissed off,*untouched women can cry rape or date rape and the guy gets hung by his balls. However, rape is a process, deliberate and brutal. People accused of molestation have been dads bathing with their kids – something almost any father does with very young children – in the nude, (How else?) Dads going through a divorce and Mom and lawyer find a child molestation charge alters the courts favor to the woman, Moms trying to cover something up that happened to the kid after the divorce and accusing Dad of doing the dirty deed.
Then we get to the nonvirginal teenaged daughters, pissed off because Dad won’t let them see and screw scumbag junior in his ‘bad’ cloths and shaven ‘ghetto’ head. So, she accuses him of touching her in funny ways. By the time he clears his name, she’s taken off with scumbag.
Lets not forget the little tikes, 1 through 5, who when questioned by shrinks and detectives about being molested, have been known to happily lie and exaggerate about an incident which never happened. (Displayed on the learning channel in one of their better programs.)
If I were married and had a daughter or son, I would run the risk of being accused of being a molester and abuser. If I bathed nude with my 2 year old – most dads have – and he/she mentioned in day care that I have a ‘flashlight and golf balls in a bag’ between my legs, guess who shows up at the door breathing fire and holding removal papers with the ink still wet, followed by the law, pepper spray and stun guns ready to drag my obviously psychotic ass off to jail? HRS.
If when horsing around with my ‘son,’ I grab his crotch as I swing him over my head in the pool for a body slam (a light one, of course) and he mentions this in school, HRS will come knocking. If my son gets a bruise playing and is pissed at me, all he needs to do is tell a teacher I whacked him, and HRS will open a file on me. If I have a teen daughter who gets mad, and she’s been using Tampex, she can cry molestation and a doctors examination will show she might have had sex. The prosecutors will trample each other to get to me and it could cost me thousands to prove myself innocent.
The catch 22 here is that a person accused and found innocent of rape goes about his normal life within a few weeks.
A person accused of and found innocent of molestation or abuse never recovers his life because the news plays his accusation up more, the children’s rights groups stress what horrible beasts men are, and there are always those who will believe that he did it. Plus, he does not get the money he spent on his lawyer back. The courts and prosecutor aren’t going to say ‘sorry bud. Here’s your $50,000 back. No hard feelings.’ Plus the detectives are going to sit there and growl at him that they’ll ‘be watching.’
I want to point a little radical sidebar here: You can buy porn tapes dealing with rape for pleasure. Fake rape. Rape appeals on many levels sexually to some men and women. Sure you can buy ‘kiddy’ porn where the ‘18’ year old girls are actually 22 or 25, but you cannot buy any porn with kids obviously age 11 or below – legally anyhow. I don’t know if you can buy such even illegally.
OK, so rape, while severe, does not apparently have the social stigma that child molestation and abuse has, especially with young or young looking kids.
Hey. Once I was sitting behind a 12 year old who was showing me how to use my then first computer, in my cramped spare room. My room mate walked in with his teacher girlfriend and saw us, chatted and left. Later, after the kid went home, my roomie said his girl friend told him I was a child molester!! She could tell because I looked the profile, plus I was sitting close behind the boy and apparently, when they came in, I looked ‘guiltily’ at them.
He had known me for 10 years, and was almost convinced that I was a secret molester!! The kid was our lawn kid. I knew his folks. For fear of being accused and loosing my job, I fired him, and then informed his folks why – in complete detail. They were appalled at what the woman had said. They knew I had done nothing and wanted to know if I would have him back, now that they knew about the accusations. I said I could not risk it. My job was a sensitive one, where I was bondable and could not be a security risk nor a bad image.
I sweated out being accused for ages, until my roomie dumped the teacher.
So, that’s why the laws need to be remodified to something within reason.
Since I am neither a child nor a parent, Gaudere, I am not assuming anything. I would note, however, that a child who is sneaking around to leave the house is probably at an age where spanking will do little good. I would also note that you seem to be clueless as to what to do should your non-violent methods prove useless.
I think many forms of discipline are effective, provided parents discipline firmly, fairly and inexorably. Regardless of what punishment a parent uses, if punishment is promised, it had better be delivered; else you get a spoiled child.
Personally, I don’t think spanking hurts or hinders children. If parents want to use spanking as a discipline, that is their right; if they don’t, that, too, is their decision. Regardless of methods used, I would like to see kids who can halfway behave themselves in public.
As a 40-year-old, I am afraid that I agree with many of Far Trekers’ statements. I don’t think a lack of spanking causes those problems so much as these factors:
Laziness: Too many parents today don’t want to do the work of raising their children. They expect the churches, the government, the school and the media to raise their precious darlings. I’ve got a news flash for the American public: Raising kids is hard work and requires much sacrifice. If you’re not up to it, get sterilized.
“It’s my kid and I don’t care what he’s done; I’m gonna protect him.” I’ve seen too many parents display this attitude and try to shield their brats from the consequences of the kids’ misdeeds. Not being as dumb as their parents, kids quickly pick up that Mommy & Daddy will glady run interference if teachers, police officers, ministers or any other adults try to make them pay for misdeeds. Then the lil’ darlings get out into the real world and wonder why they have problems with college professors and bosses.
The stupid belief that parents and children should be friends.
Divorce: When parents break up, it does have a harmful effect on the kids most of the time. It’s hard to grow up as you should when your parents are using you as a pawn on an adult chessboard.
I have no problem with a teacher grabbing any child if they are not behaving, nor any problem with them getting a firm shake…
Ah, gee, another pissing contest.
When I was in school, I had the pleasure of being in 6 different classes with 180 young animals, roughly 50% were male, about 50% of them were actively feeling their hormones and about 25% were working on becoming future criminals of America, professional football players and professional wrestlers. They got disruptive. If they were not actively trying to beat someone up on the school grounds, they were mouthing off at the teacher.
I observed teachers more than once walk down the desks and forcefully turn them around in their seats, interrupting their attempts to schmooz the chick behind them or threatening that skinny kid with glasses with a beating so they could impress that chick. Big deal.
I also was grabbed by the arm once by a teacher because I was running my mouth and did not hear him tell me to shut up and turn around and not only does my arm still work, but he left to bruises.
It’s idiots like you who have taken authority away from the teachers and now kids know that no one in the school can do jack shit to them and they run wild.
My folks figured that if I got whacked in school – which I did once – by the principal, then I probably deserved it – which I did – and gave me more heck when I got home. The principal would happily let our folks know if we got paddled and why.
(Scratching head in bemusement.) Strange. No one that I know of who got paddled in school turned into a mewling psychotic, unable to function in adult society. Nor did anyone have to be rushed to the hospital afterwards. Astonishingly, back the HRS was not called in to investigate! Gosh! Can you imagine that? Parents knew when not to get the law involved!
The daughter of a friend of mine is 9 and she came home from school all surprised and shocked because her teacher had grabbed a boy by the arm and forced him to sit down! (Horrors!) Upon questioning the girl, I found out that the kid was being disruptive and had ignored the teacher’s requests for him to behave and start the lesson. So, the teacher walked to his desk, took him firmly by the arm and plunked him down in his seat.
Big deal.
The kid wasn’t hurt.
The kid did not cry.
The kid did not make a fuss.
The kid did not have his arm ripped off and beaten about the head with the bloody end of it.
What shocked the girl was that teachers are not allowed to touch the kids for discipline! She was more horrified by the action because of that than by the action itself.
Now that, my friend, is sheer bullshit.
Years ago, if you called in the cops because a teacher grabbed your kid by the arm, the police would laugh at you. If you called in your lawyer, even he would have told you to save your money. If you got testy with the teacher, he might walk off school grounds and pop you one.
Now, thanks to litigious fools like you, teachers are afraid to teach, kids are not being as well educated as they should be, the costs of education has gone up and the educators are scared to show any affection for their students.
The days of ‘Good Morning Miss. Dove’ and ‘To Sir, With Love’ have ended because of you people. Caring teachers like in ‘Up the Down Staircase’ have left the building.
When I went to highschool the teachers weren’t allowed to assault the students and order was maintained. Disruptive students were told to leave. Violence is not effective way to maintain order in a classroom. Your’re teachers employed it and you still had disruptive students.
As an aside to the moderators or anyone else: Are comments like these appropriate for a GD thread?
It is my understanding that inflammatory comments such as these are to remain in the BBQ pit. I’m still relatively new here, so I’d like some help, thanks.
You are absoluutely correct, Doc. I’m sure a moderator will be around soon to officially reprimand FarTreker.
FarTreker: Please stop being on my side of this issue. You are giving me a bad name…
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Four months, two weeks, three days, 6 hours, 47 minutes and 50 seconds.
5571 cigarettes not smoked, saving $696.41.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 2 weeks, 5 days, 8 hours, 15 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey!*[/sub]
FarTreker: as noted, your comments are inappropriate for this forum. Further outbursts from you may result in deletion of your posts and/or this thread being moved to the Pit. Rysdad: sorry, when editing your post I accidentally deleted an extra sentence. Maybe you could repost your comment?
Apologies for the ‘intense’ language. I got carried away.
Interesting though, with my teachers of the past being able to physically discipline kids, we did not have any little gangs roaming the school grounds, very little drug trade, and we had a dress code that was enforced with few problems. No kid could have hair below their collar, nor could his head be shaven bald. He could not wear any form of facial hair. His clothing had to be reasonably neat and could not consist of shirts upon which anything derogatory, sexual or off color was written.
Girls had to wear dresses and shorts of a certain length, hair had to be neat, and bras were mandatory.
No ghetto blasters allowed at all. No weapons allowed. (However, this kind of did not include pocket knives for almost every kid carried a small one. I don’t recall anyone ever pulling one on another kid.)
I had to do some work at a high school not all that long ago and arrived just as the bell rang for class change so I sat in my truck and watched. I was not impressed by the ‘raggedy’ crowds which emerged, most wearing the baggy ‘ghetto/Black/rap’ style of clothing, many wearing shirts or jackets with questionable slogans or pictures on them, and guys with shaven heads, hair in dirty looking dread locks, long hair and some with chin whiskers or lip lines.
Some carried portable radios and most appeared irritated. I guess they had their ‘street faces’ on.
Uniformed police officers prowled the area along with several big teachers.
For all of the ‘thugs’ in my old school, when classes changed, most of the students looked happy. All were dressed within the code – which gave quite a bit of flexibility – and while hard and acid rock ruled back then, no one wore clothing promoting drugs, racism, sex or violence.
There were no police officers on campus either. Teachers both male and female would be out during period change. You know, I don’t even know if we had a psychological consoler there or not. The biggest ‘drug’ problem teachers had to watch for was smoking in the bathrooms. We had a truant officer who prowled the streets looking for kids skipping school and when he found some, he hauled them in.
Our biggest ‘political/racial’ groups were Surfers verses the Greasers. (The Greasers were those interested in hot rods, cycles, auto shop and combed their hair back like Travolta in ‘Grease.’ The Surfers were those who, if they could, would spend every minute at the beach, surfing.)
We did not have heavy chicken wire strung along the posts of outside, covered walk ways.
All of this and our teachers could physically discipline kids too! Wow! Local crime was very low too! One could sit in the city park at 2 in the morning and not get mugged!
My methods depend on what the particular child responds to, but I draw the line at hitting him/her, just as you probably draw the line at hitting him/her hard enough to cause severe damage. I notice you did not respond to what you would do if violent methods prove ineffective.
What if someone was trying to convince you that children needed to be physically abused–beating with a whip until they bled. You’d say you’d discipline with moderate spanking, and they’d say, well, that if that doesn’t work, what then?–in the hopes of getting you to admit that abuse was sometimes necessary, even though it viscerally offends your morals. There seems to be an assumption that nothing will work besides physical force; that is, you’re assuming the truth of your conclusion. That’s not a valid argument. Although I disapprove of spanking, I do not say that children cannot be taught to obey discipline with spanking; I simply think it unneccessary. Yet you seem to imply that it’s an absolutely necessary part of discipline and the most effective type of discipline, despite evidence to the contrary.
We all have certain rules about what we consider acceptable to do to a child. Time-outs–yes for both of us. Spankings–no for me, yes for you. Sexual abuse–no for both of us. Calling our child names–(probably) no for both of us. Stealing from the child–(probably) no for both of us. Stripping the child naked and making him/her walk down the street holding a “I’m a lousy kid” sign–(probably) no for both of us. The point is, there are certain things we do not believe are acceptable parts of discipline; perhaps a proponent of making the kid walk naked holding a sign might decry our “limitedness”, and ask what we would do if all our other methods failed. However, just because we do not consider every possible thing we might do to a child acceptable does not necessarily mean we aren’t perfectly capable of raising a child without those few disciplinary acts we exclude. Children who are not spanked can turn out as well or even better than spanked children, even if their parents never considered hitting them. I do not consider hitting a child to make him obey acceptable, anymore than calling him names, stealing from him, or making him walk around naked is acceptable–and the evidence seems to be that we can raise a child well without all of these.
I do agree with you that crappy parenting is a problem. However, the choice is not “raise a child well with spanking” or “don’t spank and do a lousy job of parenting”. You can raise a child well even if you do not spank, and I consider discipline through fear of physical pain at the hands of a loved one to be a less-than-ideal method.
FarTreker: you seem to be primarily referring to the changes of the modern world and laying them all at the door of being unable to hit children, without any evidence that this is the cause for the changes. Do you remember the stats I cited that 95% of juvenile delinquents were abused or severly spanked, and none were never spanked? Did physical discipline make them turn out all right? I know you ignore studies, but it seems like you are drawing your conclusions based on little more than a preference for physical punishment. You say that once things were good, and now they are bad, and lay it on the door of lack of physical punishment, even though the vast majority of parents still spank, and it’s the severely spanked and abused children that are most likely to be violent. Your primary point seems to be that not only should I hit my child, but other people should have the right to hit my child too, and then we won’t have any callous CEOs, gangs, or bad kids, and I simply don’t think your speculations are adequately supported. If you wish to simply rant about bad kids today, go to the Pit. I mean, claiming that lack of spanking makes kids create violent video games, without any knowledge of what proportions of those who create the games were in fact spanked or a good reason for the supposed correlation?
The portion that was accidentally deleted referred to the following:
My response was that bumper stickers that proclaim a child’s achievements are a nice way for both the school and the parents to acknowledge the kid’s accomplishments.
Whether anyone else cares or not is entirely irrelevant.
Anyway, back to the question at hand…
It’s conceivable that, had my son been born with a different disposition, and had I never seen the results of discipline overdone or taken to the extreme, then maybe I might have been a “spanking parent.” I just know how my son reacts to discipline, and I know physical punishment wouldn’t work for him.
Addressing the school situation…
Let’s assume you’re a parent that doesn’t believe in belittling or humiliation as a form of discipline. You don’t call your kids “stupid” or “nitwit.” What would you do if a teacher called your kid a “moron” in front of the class? Wouldn’t you feel that your parental authority had been usurped?
Why, then, would I allow a teacher to physically “correct” my son? Note here, that I’m not saying that merely coming into physical contact is out of bounds. Placing a hand on his shoulder and telling him to take a seat is perfectly fine. It’s the “getting a firm shake” that I take issue with.
If another parent doesn’t mind that sort of treatment of their child, more power to 'em. I would mind, though. Alot.
Girls had to wear dresses: I am glad that was overturned back when I was in 7th grade.
Question: what is consdiered abuse and what simple discipline legally?
Not to hijack my own thread, but on the question of bathing with your child, I had read once that Lenny Bruce used to bathe with his 11 yr. old daughter so she wouldn’t think there was something dirty about the human body. Myself, I never saw much need for privacy; my son and I don’t close the bathroom door and he sees nothing fascinating about being naked.
Back to the spanking: I do spank my son. It doesn’t hurt him at all, I think it’s just the fact that he is spanked that gets the idea through that what he said was wrong.
