h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The opponents of physical punishment seem to mainly suggest pychological torture as its replacement. This can often be equally cruel and possibly more damaging in the long term.

As the father of three, I have occasionally had to resort to slapping, and I do think that I, on these few occasions lost the battle, but I do also feel, that, now I my wife and I, can, use everyone's feeling at that time and say something like "just think on how you felt the last time ..." and often we find that breaks into the screaming/sulking/being rude routine.

Mina I think *Then make parentcraft classes compulory for all parents.*
is a good idea but I would gone on to make it a yearly course for the first three years. Held by *parents* as well as health care workers.

Gnomon, could you elaborate? In what way are non-physical methods of discipline psychological torture?

I also disagree with the comment to smack a child who throws toys out of its pram. Doesn't solve the problem.

Note the timely appearance of the guide entry on Toddler Taming!

PS re smacking a child who has hit another - not an effective punishment sure, but with a child who is old enough to understand, done moderately & calmly with explanation - you hurt them, this is how it feels - can be useful. Part of promoting 'do as you would be done by'.

What I meant by psychological torture was things I've seen parents doing like saying "I don't love you anymore, you are a bad child, nobody could love a child like you" in an effort to make the child realise they have done something wrong.

Hmmm... I can only recall two times when my mom smacked. One for calling her an ****hole all over the whole slope when we were skiing and another time, because I drove her mad not wanting to remember my own address. At the first incident she smacked me in the face, just before a whole load of spectators. She hurt her wrist while she was at it.

Tehehe, it is always good to wear a helmet

Anyway, on a more serious note. I got slapped a couple fo times more, but I can´t remember them. The thing that I remember is that I deserved it and that it was never too hard. It was there just to show me that I went over my boundaries and still gaining speed.

The son of friends of my parents, on the other hand, always got smacked in advance. In case he might be naughty. He was naughty quite often, so most days started with a serious bashing. I still recall, when his dad smacked him so hard, while having breakfast, that his whole face was covered in egg. Didn´t do the kid any good. He has now been charged three times for bashing other people.

So, personally, I think I would smack my kids. Especially because I am sometimes a bit short tempered. But I would just do it, if they deserve it.

In fact I like the way Mina does it. It really makes him think about it...

Ouzo, still a dink

IF "I don't love you anymore, you are a bad child, nobody could love a child like you" is one alternative form of chastisment I think it is a very very dangerous road to go down. IMO kids need to know that *come what may* they will always have somewhere that is welcoming warm and loving to them. No matter what they do, or is done to them, they will alway have *home* . THAT is what we are trying to instill in our childern and will continue to do so.

Hmm, I'm not actually against smacking children - I remember having the back of my legs slapped a couple of times by my mother when I was small - to be honest, the humiliation of being punished in public was far worse than the pain of the slap. (And yes, I had done something I knew at the time was wrong - don't all kids?)

I've never actually had to resort to smacking my own son, he's only 4 and thankfully, I've always managed to get him to do what I want by explaining things to him (I must appear very scary to a four year old when I'm annoyed ) - However, I am against legislation preventing parents punishing their children as they feel fit - it should be up to the parent. In much the same way, I was against the abolition of the cane/slipper in schools... When I was in school, if you did anything seriously wrong, the teacher wouldn't punish you, that would be left up to the headmaster, who would then send a letter home to your parents explaining what had happened and why, which in itself was a fantastic deterrent!

I'm not against smacking... I think it does have it's place.

I try hard to ignore the bad behaviour and if it gets to the stage where I find myself yelling I have to check myself and start whispering... it's amazing how changing the volume of your voice can have an instant effect. They have to stop wining/crying/screaming to hear what you're saying to them. The other thing we use is the bottom step. Very usful in our house since I can see it from both the lounge and the kitchen and if they are being truley horrible then they get sent to sit there until they calm down. Within two minutes of being sat there they will calm down. And I only have to say the words "step, now" and my almost 2 year old and 3 1/2 year old know I mean business. I think my tone of voice and the look on my face are more often than not extremely effective at carrying across my message.

I have only ever smacked in very rare occurances, at times when they've been endangering themselves... for climbing up and switching on the gas cooker for instance. And that would have been described as a sharp tap on the back of the hand.

No-one says it's easy, but it is perfectly possible to raise a child without physical or mental abuse. In Norway it's been illegal to hit or frighten children since 1987. The law says that
"The child must not be subjected to violence or in other ways be handled in such a manner that that the childs physical or mental health is hurt or in danger."
So what do we do? Hit them when no-one sees us? Soundproof rooms? Nope.
Most Norwegian kids are quite well-behaved. If not, it's mostly the grown-up that's the problem, and there's a lot of ways to get help if you need it. If your kid is screeming it's head of, to get what it wants, it's because it have seen it work. It's you as parent's own d*mn fault, and if you need to smack anyone, smack yourself!

To say that smacking a child demonstrates you have lost the battle is somewhat missing the point. How can you reason in an adult manner with a 3 year old? You can't, it's impossible, yet you still need to convey to them that what they've done is wrong. A smack or spank conveys this in a way that they can understand "I did this, mum shouted at me and now I can't sit down. I won't do it again." Taking them aside and explaining in intricate detail, the finer points of what constitutes right and wrong is going to achieve nothing.

I don't condone beating a child for no reason - not by any stretch of the imagination.

I was beaten as a child and I don't think it ever did me any harm. The reasons for being beaten were usually because I'd done something blatantly foolish in retrospect but seemingly to me innocent at the time ... a smack would tell me that what I had done was wrong and not to be repeated. For the same reasons I was beaten when I first went away to school, except where mum used her hand, at school they used a gym shoe or slipper.

I don't think it's done me any harm (not that that's a reason to allow it) and I can think of many a time when had my mum and dad known exactly what I'd been up to, they would have done a great deal more than just spanked.

There is obviously a fine line between a warning smack and all out abuse but there are times when reasoning will achieve little. They are kids after all, they're not adults, and reasoning with them as adults is going to have little effect.

As for who should be allowed to smack and where the line is drawn, who are we to say. Parents have to be able to control their children so to make it illegal for a parent to carry out such disciplinary action seems foolish. Teachers are effectively the guardians of the children whilst they are at school and should teach them as if they are; reprimanding and disciplining them there and then, there's no point telling Mum that Jonny's been a naughty boy and then Mum disciplining him at home ... he needs to learn there and then.

As I've said, I don't condone the over use of beating when it comes to disciplining a child, but at the same time you do need to let them know that what they've done is wrong in a method they'll understand.

At the moment I am childless (at least I think I am ) but there is a hope that one day there will be some ickle people out there who call me dad ... maybe my thoughts will change at that time but it did me no harm and my first memory is being pursued around the yard in front of the house by my mum trying to hit me ... can't remember why but I'd probably set fire to the cat or something ...

It would be interesting to know how other cultures cope with disciplining their children. For example - Japanese. I cannot imagine a Japanese mother smacking her child yet the children always seem very respectful towards their elders and each other. Where and how do they learn this respect?

Lady in Tree -
I'm not sure this is true at all.
I don't have any personal experience about this, but I saw a film called Battle Royale (superb it is too btw) which is set in the immediate future in Japan. It features the 'Battle Royale Act' that was brought in to punish classes of unruly school children as they were getting far too violent and out of control for the authorities to sort out. So they set up a 'game' where the worst behaved class in the country each year would be sent to an island, given a survival kit and told to kill each other off - leaving one survivor.

Sorry to go off on a bit of a tangent, but my point is that if there wasn't a discipline problem in Japan, why would this kind of film have been made and set in the early years of this century?

That is my point though GWL. I have no knowledge at all of the way other cultures discipline their kids. Is it the same the world over? Is it just the westernised cultures that advocate non-physical discipline? Do African children (for example) have to endure strict beatings? I am just curious.

"Teachers are effectively the guardians of the children whilst they are at school and should teach them as if they are; reprimanding and disciplining them there and then"

Slight problem with that - what happens when the teachers are not, as you would hope for them to be, caring professionals drawn to teaching as a vocation? What happens when they're bitter, twisted, useless wastes of space who couldn't get a proper job, and so turn to teaching because they know there's a shortage so once you're in it's practically impossible to get sacked no matter how incompetent you are? What happens when they take out their frustration at their failure to make what they wanted of their lives on the poor kids entrusted to their care?

Don't get me wrong - I had many wonderful teachers in my time at school. There are at least a dozen whose hands I would warmly shake and who I would thank effusively for the education and guidance they provided me. Those people were the caring professionals, and I count myself privileged to have experienced their skills. But as you might possibly suspect, there are a similar number for whom sacking would just be the start of what I think they deserve...

H.

I had a similar number of "good" teachers, and about double that many bad ones.

As to smacking/canning in school, I am in favour of it, on condition that the person deciding on the punishment has to admit it, and if they are later proved to be wrong (for example punishing someone who insists on their innocence, and is later proved right) then they submit in identical circumstances to their own punishment.

it would not take many lazy headmasters getting a canning at assembly for not bothering to fully investigate some incident for the practice to become better implimented.

As to training parents, no thanks. train everyone to think properly instead (the methods already exist) and then they won't react badly to the child's behaviour in the first place.

Do you think that bringing back corporal punishment would really restore children's respect for authority?

Anyone see the film 'Scum' lately? Set in a 70s borstal, it has plenty of graphic violence. But it has to raise a few questions about the use of violence to gain respect and authority.
Personally, I think there's more to it than simply smacking kids. I cycle past a primary school on the way to work in the mornings, and hearing the way some mothers talk to their kids - to me, that is why there is a problem with some children's attitude. Kids only learn from what is around them, and if all they hear is a mother who can't cope shouting at him/her for every little thing, then they are not going to grow up with the soundest attitude to their peers and superiors.

I have spent a total of about 20 years in various African countries. I have never seen a child even smacked, let alone beaten. In Ethiopia, children were allowed to do anything they wanted until they reached their fifth birthday, by which time they has learnt how to behave.
Why? so many of them die before they are five that they are not even called by the own names until that time (this is partly to confuse the devil who may be looking for them)
How? Extended families or small villages mean that there is always someone to amuse/distract a child. Non-industrial work means that adults can stop also. Most children travel on their mothers' or sisters' backs long after they can walk. So always close to someone who will pay attention.
Far less TV to give toddlers ideas of things they "can't live without"

There is an element of society for whom the law means absolutely nothing so it is going to make little difference what legislation is laid down. Those people who victimise and abuse children as some kind of repayment for the pains inflicted on them will continue to do so whatever happens.

Treating anyone who works with children as a psycopathic paedophile though is victimising the large portion of the population who are 'normal' and can only help to disadvantage the kids.

I know that the line between abuse and disciplining is a fine one but it is still a line.

"had", not "has", there.
BTW, my own children, brought up in Africa, never threw tantrums. One never even cried until he was a year old and caught the measles