Only offensive if you don't believe in disciplining your children

EricTheWeary

I blame the smoking ban. Once the beer garden was the preserve of the parent and child and/ or the dog walker ( I am both) but now the outside space around pubs is full of smokers and their debris so you have to take the kids indoors to get fresh air. Nowhere to go with the dog now :o3

chrispy108

IanSavage said:

As a teacher who daily deals with kids whose parents have clearly never given a shit about their kids' attitude to others, nail the lot of 'em to a table, preferably one made of lead, and chuck the fucker in the ocean. 

Clearly the problem is a lack of respect, boundaries, role models, and dare I say it, love, rather than not being hit enough?

Phil_aka_Pip

UnclePsychosis said:

Children that small can't correlate the link. Spanking them doesn't teach them

anything positive. It just teaches them that sometimes its ok for big strong people to hit little people. 

yes they can. I learned from it that I'd done something to incur great displeasure. Natch, the tone of voice and the choice of words that went with it helped as well. Being a somewhat wilful child I don't think that "Daddy is very unhappy with what you did" would have made a lot of difference, whereas being afraid of Daddy's anger made me think twice about doing that again.

Drew_TNBD

Phil_aka_Pip said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Children that small can't correlate the link. Spanking them doesn't teach them

anything positive. It just teaches them that sometimes its ok for big strong people to hit little people. 

Being a somewhat wilful child I don't think that "Daddy is very unhappy with what you did" would have made a lot of difference

Well lets be real... you were robbed of the chance of truly knowing the answer. It's a bit like circumcision.. boys who have it done as babies don't know what uncircumcised sex is like, yet they're quite willing to pontificate about how it either doesn't matter, or that their sexual prowess has been improved because of it. Doesn't change the fact that someone took the decision away from them.

I was "disciplined" in this manner. Yes, it did affect me. I have very mixed feelings about my parents because of the "discipline" I experienced as a child, from about the age of 4 or 5 upwards to the age of 18. Yes, even at 18 my mum was still trying to discipline me with fists. Problem is, I was bigger and learned to defend myself by then. Had my dad not died in 1999, I do not doubt that I would've ended up in some proper fist fights with him the older I became.

If you have to use threats of violence or employ direct physical violence, then in my honest opinion, you are an abysmal failure of a parent and a pretty terrible human being. Are you as bad as a rapist? No, but almost.

Phil_aka_Pip

@Drew_FX your operative word is "fists". My parents NEVER used fists. Fists are for fighting (amongst other things). parental discipline was administered with the flat of the hand, against a part that was unlikely to suffer for it, apart from smarting a bit afterwards. You (and Uncle Psychosis) clearly don't understand the difference between that and aggressive violence.

Axe_meister

As a child I would have rather have had a quick smack on the bum rather than being shouted at being grounded.

I remember getting the cane at school after upsetting a wasps nest in the school grounds.

I bloody well learnt my lesson. Never got into trouble at school again.

Drew_TNBD

Phil_aka_Pip said:

@Drew_FX your operative word is "fists". My parents NEVER used fists. Fists are for fighting (amongst other things). parental discipline was administered with the flat of the hand, against a part that was unlikely to suffer for it, apart from smarting a bit afterwards. You (and Uncle Psychosis) clearly don't understand the difference between that and aggressive violence.

No. It's parents that do not understand the difference between "discipline" and "aggressive violence".

Every child is different, even from birth. They respond differently to "discipline" for starters. Some are receptive, and some dig in with a "fuck you then" attitude. As a kid my attitude was not one of contrition. It was essentially "if you're going to hit me, then I'm going to make sure it hurts. Because I know instinctively it bothers you that you have to do this, and FUCK YOU!!"

That was my attitude. Others, less so. They become withdrawn and lose all of their potential.

But this is even forgetting the fact that one set of parents might consider fists to be "discipline" and one might consider it "the ultimate in child abuse" there really is no objective metric here to evaluate. You consider a quick smack to the bottom to be "discipline" whereas I might consider that "highly sexualised violence"... especially if the child is female. Not saying I do... just saying I *might*

The bottom line is this - YOUR idea of discipline isn't the only one. Yes, you Phi_aka_Pip. Your idea of discipline might seem perfectly sensible to you, but unfortunately we don't all live life to the gospel of Pip. You seem to be implying a fixed notion of discipline, and I've seen enough of discipline to know that it is easily malleable according to the temperament of the person administering said discipline.

C'mon chap... you're a programmer. You know all about variables and that... shouldn't have to explain this. It should be bloody obvious.

Phil_aka_Pip

yes Drew, I accept that the viewpoint is mine, and not yours, neither is it that of Uncle Psychosis. I was just arguing for the viewpoint, that's all. I didn't expect to convince you, or U.P., only to explain where I'm coming from so to speak.

Drew_TNBD

Phil_aka_Pip said:

yes Drew, I accept that the viewpoint is mine, and not yours, neither is it that of Uncle Psychosis. I was just arguing for the viewpoint, that's all. I didn't expect to convince you, or U.P., only to explain where I'm coming from so to speak.

I understand where you're coming from.

I saw some research a while back; basically statistics we have on spanking rely on parents self-reporting. The research used recorders to track the frequency of applied discipline. What they found was shocking - parents under-reported by massive amounts.

http://www.decodedscience.com/corporal-punishment-ineffective-common-frequent/44868
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/2014/08/21/14201746/
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2014-12893-001/

Essentially, parents physically hit their kids more than they say they do. When you link this up with other reports that state the various negative results of physical punishment, it's not hard to make a correlation between frequency and severity of outcome.

Now... I wont speak for U.P, but my position is based on evidence and science. Your position is based on the flawed memories of your childhood, which are coloured by love and admiration (or hatred and envy is an option too) for your parents, coloured by your current age, and coloured by a whole variety of things about your person.

In short: you're not being objective enough, which is why you think a light spanking is fine.

Phil_aka_Pip

I reckon my prejudices and preconceptions are every bit as valid as any psychobabble or social science research. Remember, you can prove anything with statistics. It's not as if these people are measuring physical quantities, they're no better than economists.

RocknRollDave

I agree with pretty much all of what @Drew_fx says above, but this in particular:
"If you have to use threats of violence or employ direct physical violence, then in my honest opinion, you are an abysmal failure of a parent and a pretty terrible human being."

I'm also with @frankus (I think it was he) in that he was asking the question is it ok to hit adults to discipline them. Let's take an example where leadership/ authority is needed over an adult - the workplace. Now, if I did something willflly neglectful, or insolent at work, would it be acceptable for my boss to physically strike me?
In my opinion, no it would not. So why is it OK to hit children? "Ah", you say, "but children can't follow reason in the way an adult can, you can't expect them to sit down and discuss the problem calmly and rationally"..

Agreed. But if they cannot rationalise simple logical commands ("Don't hit Mommy, it hurts!") then smacking them is taking a step even further back from rationalising things, in my opinion.

If a child is too young to understand the discipline you are attempting to bestow, take them out of the situation - take the fork off them, take them away from the person they are kicking, remove the toy, put them in their bedroom...whatever. It is your job as a parent to make them safe.
It's not always possible, but smacking them will, IMO, stop a short term problem by creating worse, larger long term problems.

Drew_TNBD

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I reckon my prejudices and preconceptions are every bit as valid as any psychobabble or social science research. Remember, you can prove anything with statistics. It's not as if these people are measuring physical quantities, they're no better than economists.

Incorrect, ignorant, and self-deceitful.

UnclePsychosis

I have to agree with drew. If you need to resort to fear and violence (inflicting physical pain is violence regardless of how much you want to pretend otherwise) on a child-perhaps one as young as 2-then you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

Still, if you want to teach your child that it's ok for the strong to use violence against the weak, to cause yourself mental anguish (ever met a parent who enjoyed hitting a child?) or increase your child's risk of mental illness then you go ahead and spank them.

Just don't get butthurt when those of us who think children deserve better than violence judge you for doing it and refuse to leave our children alone in your company.

Phil_aka_Pip

Drew_fx said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I reckon my prejudices and preconceptions are every bit as valid as any psychobabble or social science research. Remember, you can prove anything with statistics. It's not as if these people are measuring physical quantities, they're no better than economists.

Incorrect, ignorant, and self-deceitful.

And don't you forget it!

Phil_aka_Pip

UnclePsychosis said:

I have to agree with drew. If you need to resort to fear and violence (inflicting physical pain is violence regardless of how much you want to pretend otherwise) on a child-perhaps one as young as 2-then you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

Still, if you want to teach your child that it's ok for the strong to use violence against the weak, to cause yourself mental anguish (ever met a parent who enjoyed hitting a child?) or increase your child's risk of mental illness then you go ahead and spank them.

Just don't get butthurt when those of us who think children deserve better than violence judge you for doing it and refuse to leave our children alone in your company.

Hmmm... saves me from having to give them the boot blacking tin to play with, to avoid having to babysit for them again

UnclePsychosis

Phil_aka_Pip;375536" said:

I reckon my prejudices and preconceptions are every bit as valid as any psychobabble or social science research. Remember, you can prove anything with statistics. It's not as if these people are measuring physical quantities, they're no better than economists.

LOL.

It's always nice to be reminded why the *average* IQ is 100.

Axe_meister

I think where we have to differentiate between what is a general, tap on the hand, pat on the bottom and violence because the parent has lost it.

I don't believe there is a parent in existence that has not lost it at some point. A good parent takes themselves out of the situation and/or controls their anger, but no parent/human is perfect.

Kids in a lot of ways live in the moment and are very black and white and they also try and push your boundaries as far as they can.

It will actually take quite a shock to stop them doing something they shouldn't. It's judging what that shock should be.

My son went through a stage of sticking things into plug sockets, not matter how much you tried to reason with him, do the sticker charts, etc. He would not stop. I then reverted to. If you do that one more time, you will get a smack. Of course he tried to push (all kids try to find your boundaries), and he got a smack. Now I actually got very upset at myself for giving him a smack, and he actually picked up on that. I said sorry, he then came back and said. "Please stop crying, I was naughty and your crying is hurting me far more than the smack"

a) He has stopped sticking things into plug sockets

b) He knows that if I say, you are pushing me too far (or just raise my hand), it will end up with a lot of emotional turmoil for both of us.

It is not because he is afraid of me, more like he now has respect for me as authority and a mutual human being.

Is he still naughty, does he still try and push the limits. Of course he bloody well does. He's a kid and I wouldn't have it any other way.

However what gets on my goat is the parent you see in the middle of a supermarket, whacking a kid over the head telling them they are a little shit, because the kids is going on and on and on and on (and they do).

frankus

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I reckon my prejudices and preconceptions are every bit as valid as any psychobabble or social science research. Remember, you can prove anything with statistics. It's not as if these people are measuring physical quantities, they're no better than economists.

It's a tricky one, being name-called. You value your opinion over 40 years of research in the field, okay.

Mark Twain said 'Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.'

So ignoring that, lets indulge your opinions, dodge 40 years of research by scientists and some pretty incredible people including those who made sense of being abused and instead refer to historical figures say what they say on the matter:

Plato -  “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

A Samurai - "Furthermore, a child will become timid if he is scolded severely. One should not allow bad habits to form. After a bad habit is ingrained, although you admonish the child he will not improve. As for such things as proper speaking and good  manners make the child gradually aware of them."

Dr Seuss - "A person's a person, no matter how small."

You've got an uncompromising world-view and you're not letting go of it easily - I used to have one of those, on this very subject, I remember the confusion and stress I felt when I found it to be utterly wrong.

I'm not about challenging your belief, just cock-blocking the enlistment of others to propagate a misconception.

Phil_aka_Pip

I have noted that often when someone seriously disagrees with someone else, that disagreement is often accompanied by some kind of slight on the intelligence. eg "politician x is an idiot". I have in the past been guilty of it. Although during the previous Tory years (pre- NewLabour), I would counter such a proposition with "No, he's not stupid, he knows exactly what he's doing and why he's doing it. The word you need is BASTARD".

@Axe_meister yes your last para is a prime example of why some people think that corporal punishment doesn't work. IMO that's not proper discipline, neither is it a correct reaction to a kid going on and on and on. I suspect the kid goes on and on and on because of a past lack of appropriate discipline (whether that discipline was administered using corporal punishment or not).

Col_Decker

Well who'd of thunk it? This tread span out, totes-amaze.