A. I didn’t blame anyone for anything.
B. There was no assault.
A threat is legally an assault.
I’m having difficulty reconciling the fact that these two posts came from the same person in a relatively short period of time.
I didn’t say my response would be lawful. It would not be.
Legal definition of assault
Well, I have to admit, I feel really odd listening to the accusations of abuse that are being tossed about.
My family (and I) believe in corporal punishment. We have found it works; it’s a part of punishment options we have. It’s not even close to being the worst form of punishment used. The children in my family have always been aware of the possibility, and has not ever risen to the level of abuse. Oddly enough, it even helped establish boundaries (You can’t whup me! You’re not my mama! or aunt/uncle or grandma/grandma) at least in my mind. It bothers me when all corporal punishment is labelled “abuse” when by my WAG 80-90% of my acquaintances have been spanked and don’t see it that way. I do know what abuse is. I’ve been there. Spanking, as described by Stonebow and lezlers, ain’t abuse.
My parents spanked me. My grandparents spanked me (generally for fighting with relatives). Various aunts and uncles spanked. The spankee generally avoided repeating the behaviour. One of my cousin’s bonding rituals is reminiscing (sp?) who got the worst from my grandmother and why. We never doubted that she loved us, never doubted that she would do anything for us, including whip our asses if necessary. Once it was over, it was over.
I look at talk shows advertising “I’m afraid of my 8-year-old” and I roll my eyes. My child has been spanked. He is a nice, polite, respectful 6’1" 16-year-old who knows what his boundaries are, likes most people, is amazingly fearless (that might be usual for 16-year olds), knows what his rights are (and better yet, his responsibilities) and knows to this day, if necessary, his 5’4" mama, grandmother, aunts or uncles can and will whoop his ass. Hell, let me roll my eyes at my mama and a slap will be rapidly heading in my direction. And I’ll take it because I was wrong.
You don’t have the right to threaten a child. Period.
So, Diogenes the Cynic, it was wrong of the parent in question to threaten to whip the child with a belt. But you have no problem with threatening to essentially break the jaw of anyone who threatens to hit your daughter.
What if the person who issues the threat to your daughter is a child?
I’m just seeing mounds of inconsistencies here, and frankly, they’re difficult to tidy up. I just finished sweeping, and now look! I wish you kids wouldn’t roll in the inconsistency field before coming in for supper. You track it around everywhere. I don’t know why I even try to keep this thread clean.
I can promise you this – if you kids track any more inconsistencies in here, I’m getting a belt and swatting some fannies.
That’s very pithy and correct, i suppose, but it does not really answer the concerns i’ve got. what do you propose the other parent do? call the police? sue you, as the child’s parent? if you want to go that route, sure…just don’t go on about how they are ‘just kids.’
i’m not really ready to wreck our court system by flooding it with every instance of someone making a physical threat, especially ones that i have no doubt are used only for shock value.
and no, threatening a child is not always assault, however nice a statement that may seem to you. as a parent, i can threaten my own kids with, and in fact inflict, harm. mind you, i don’t like it- it’s the worst, most distasteful part of parenting, in my mind- but i am glad that should it become necessary (and in my judgement, there are times when it is), i can do it without being hauled off.
for what it’s worth, i agree that it’s very wrong to physically discipline another person’s child. i don’t even think it’s wise to threaten them, in jest, hyperbole, or otherwise. but a crime?
nope.
“You don’t have the right to threaten a child. Period.”
Ofcourse you do - if your kids are misbehaving at my house, I may threaten them with ‘you won’t be allowed to come here anymore unless you behave better.’
Now, threatening to smack or worse, may be an issue. If I felt that yourk kids were out of control and I couldn’t get them to leave and the only thing I can use to stop them is a threat of a smack, I’ll use it. So far in my life, I have never had to carry out the threat on someone else’s kids.
Better start the therapy fund now while your little victim is merely a thought.
I am increasingly convinced with each passing day that our society is doomed. When I was growing up, it was simply a part of life that we kids ran all over the neighborhood. All of the parents knew this, and watched out for each other’s kids. This included reigning we little monsters in when we started to get out of control. Shocking as it may be, I have had the occasional swat on the ass by a parent other than my own.
And you know what? I turned out pretty darn fine. I have a healthy respect for authority, even when my mommy isn’t watching me, I clean up my own messes and do my half of the laundry.
Not to get all Robert Heinlein about this issue, but I tend to think of folks that are 100% against corporal punishment to be kind of dumbass. The bottom line here is that we are attempting to turn untrained children in to responsible adults. To do this we have to get across the idea that actions have consequences. Sometimes negative consequences.
This is not to say that you should haul off and wack your kids with belts/switches and what have you. The hand is just fine. Also, This sort of discipline must be detached and not done in anger. That being said, if you ignore a millions of years old mechanism (negative reinforcement) of teaching, you are being a fool.
Think about these two scenarios: Little Jonnie is about to run out in traffic, in scenario one you grab his collar, yell NO! and give him a swift swat on the ass. In scenario two, you grab his collar (don’t want him to be run over), give him a time out, and then hold a little seminar afterwards where you explain why it is not ok to cross the street without looking both ways (perhaps you can have cinnamon-snap tea and take turns with the talking stick as well).
Which do you think will more quickly alter this child’s dangerous behavior?
What the fuck does that mean? Ido have a daughter. She’s not a “thought.”
All you little kiddie beaters can get your rocks off brutalizing your children all you want. Just don’t expect me to praise you for it.
And if you threaten my kid, you’re going to have a serious issue on your hands.
Thing is, having read this thread, I haven’t found anyone that seems to be advocating child abuse. Just some folks that have a different take on corporal punishment than you seem to. I also must have missed the part where anyone in this thread threatened your precious contribution to the world. You may want to try taking a deep breath and re reading what has been written here with a bit more objectivity, as it appears that something in this thread has triggered you.
I didn’t mind the belt as much as the switch. I hated having to go to my grandmother’s hedge and pick my own switch.
If I’m emotionally scarred though, that wasn’t what did it. I never got a spanking that I didn’t deserve.
And ya, my first thought would be “What did you kids do that made her say that to you? Don’t do that again!”
But I’d rather the neighbor didn’t have to say something like that to my kids too.
Dio
For the umpteenth time, the issue isn’t strictly black and white.
Calling people that believe in spanking kiddie beaters is rude, inflammatory and just plain assholish.
If you don’t believe in it, fine. But don’t go around calling people who do child abusers. When you do that you’re calling my mother a child abuser and many other people’s mothers child abusers. It’s just not cool.
Quit throwing that word around like it’s nothing. You’re not doing any children any favors.
I was being sarcastic, I should have included a rolleyes. I don’t understand why the right to hit children is so important to some people.
And yeah, child abuse flips a switch for me. I was the victim of some pretty severe abuse as a child, starting when I was an infant. My biological father tried to strangle me in my crib when I was three days old. I spent a few years being beaten, starved and tortured before my mother finally left the guy and remarried. Her new husband adopted me and I consider him my father. He was not abusive but I was screwed up for years by the early abuse and had to see a shrink for a while.
I would never hit my child for any reason and I can’t understand why anyone would think that striking a child is a good thing to do. There has never been a single formal study that shows that spanking is in any way beneficial, and there are plenty to show that it at least can be damaging.
I’m not saying people should be arrested for spanking with a abre hand, but I don’t respect it. Hitting with a belt is definitely abusive.
That’s why i asked earlier what the experiences were for those in the no-hot group. in my experience, it’s almost uniformly those who suffered horrible abuse as children.
DtC, i am very sorry for what you had to go through as a child- but there is a big difference between physical discipline and abuse. i am sorry if you do not understand this distinction though i can understand a little.
as for the ‘kiddie-beaters’ thing…well, it seems like everyone beat me to it.(no pun intended) i hope that you were in fact, joking, though it struck me as nothing short of offensive. i do not ‘get my rocks off’ disciplining my kids- and they know it too.
Diogenes,
I am sorry for your pain. But what happened to you is not what happened to my child when I spanked him. I have been sexually assaulted. It is not the same having sex with someone.
The right to discipline my child (up to and including hitting him if necessary) is important to me because I want to raise a strong, productive member of society. And my personal & anecdotal evidence shows this to be successful.
There have been a lot for “formal” studies proving everything from the intellectual inferiority of certain “races” to “ESP”. Anything in excess can be damaging. But you are entitled to your opinion.
Hmm, let’s think about it.
Scenario 1: Jonnie thinks “Dad hits me when I cross the street. What’s so bad about the street? I better wait until he goes inside the house before I cross the street again.”
Scenario 2: Jonnie thinks “Dad said I shouldn’t cross the street without looking because I could get hurt by a car. I better look for cars before I cross the street again.”